VYPR Season 1
by Dapielord
Summary: If you have had the misfortune of stumbling across this I would highly recommend moving on, it's utter poop and I'm literally only uploading this here as a means so my friends can read it and laugh xD also this is like a prequel to an rp so it won't make much sense but heigh ho
1. Chapter 1

"Oh come on V, you're basically guaranteed a place at Atlas Academy. You can afford to take a break for like, five minutes at least, right?"  
"Sure I could, if Mum didn't have this notion that we'd both be able to get there, and it's YOUR sorry ass that's causing me to slave away so that YOU can get in as well. And don't call me V, I hate pet names."  
The green haired boy rolled his eyes, jumping up onto the table and sitting right next to the pile of paper sprawled around. He jokingly poked the side of the head of the similarly green haired girl's head, causing her to look up at the boy and scowl, before getting back to writing. "What, you expect me to take the time to pronounce Vertiya? That's like an extra two syllables and about half a second that I could be spending do something actually useful."  
Vertiya paused from writing, long enough to put a hand over her eyes and sigh heavily. "Look, if you want Dad's weapons that he specifically made for you to go to waste because you can't become a huntsman, then be my guest. I'm sure you can get a job as a cleaner at the Schnee dust company."  
The boy sighed too, before actually looking at what was on the paper. "Well, what are you doing anyway? This doesn't look like something work-related."  
"That's because it's not. I've been writing to General Ironwood for something like the last few months, because he really doesn't want me to go anywhere else, seeing I've had offers from Beacon, Haven and Shade as well. And considering we were both at Alsius, and I've had four offers and you've had none, I've been trying to persuade Ironwood to let us both get in, and because he wants to get me to go to Atlas so badly, I may be able to squeeze you in as well. Plus, Ironwood and Dad know each other well, so there's a bonus."  
"That's another thing. How did you get four offers? Last time I checked, I was pretty much always able to beat you in a one v one," the boy pointed out, grinning and hence causing Vertiya to scowl again.  
"Yimesz, being a huntsman or huntress is not just about whether you can fight. There's a thing called having a brain too, something I'm sure you don't understand," Vertiya responded coolly. "Also may I point out every time we fought I didn't actually have a weapon because I hadn't made one until like, what, a couple weeks ago. Plus, you had all that boxing training whilst I was doing your homework for you because you're too lazy to do it yourself. Oh and your semblance is perfect for one v ones anyway, may I add."  
"Shh, we don't need to go over details," Yimesz yawned, before remembering what Vertiya just said. "Wait, you finally decided on a weapon? What did you go for?" Yimesz knew Vertiya was struggling to find a weapon that suited her as a person, mainly because she didn't enjoy using standard weapons like swords, axes or the like. Yimesz was a very fast paced, close quarters fighter, and with boxing under his belt, the knuckledusters/revolvers combo he used fitted him perfectly. Vertiya was a little more complex, though.  
Nevertheless, on the mention of it, Vertiya let out a rare smile. "You remember back when we were kids, and how I always loved doing card tricks? I figured why not stick to my roots," she explained, and through what seemed to be sleight of hand three cards appeared in between each of her fingers, each one glowing a different colour.

Yimesz paused for a while, taking in exactly what Vertiya's weapon was, before bursting out laughing. "You… intend to fight… with a deck… of cards?" Yimesz asked, in between laughs and breaths. "What good will they do?"  
"I don't know, you tell me," Vertiya responded, and with perfect aim she carefully chucked the blue card in her hand at Yimesz's arm, freezing it to the table in solid ice. Yimesz struggled for a bit, before dropping the laugh and looking back at Vertiya, a grimace on his lips differing from the smirk on Vertiya's.  
"Very funny. Now get me out of this," he said, his tone less amused than the usual jokey nature of it.  
"What, I thought you were under the impression that just a deck of cards wouldn't be able to do much," Vertiya replied innocently, chucking a red card at the ice and creating a small fire that melted it, before the card and the fire vanished. "I was always good at throwing cards anyway, and there's a lot you can do with cards when dust is in the equation."  
Yimesz raised his eyebrows at the last point of Vertiya's statement. "Let me point out that it's thanks to me that you have access to so much dust, thanks to my great contacts within the Schnee family, which you pointed out a couple minutes ago."  
Vertiya rolled her eyes, shaking her head. "What, you mean that 'relationship' you had with Winter? Please, if you count that as a thing, I might as well go out and say I'm a love guru."  
"Well, you can't deny that it hasn't got me to at least be friends with her, and therefore I do get the perks that come with knowing someone born into the largest dust company in Atlas, if not Remnant," Yimesz replied.  
"True, I'll give you that," Vertiya said, shrugging. "I guess without the dust, the cards wouldn't work, so I'd still be stuck without a weapon."  
"Still, it's a pretty peculiar weapon," Yimesz pointed out, shrugging. "But lemme guess, that's the angle you were intending to go for?"  
"More or less. I prefer to confuse my enemies rather than try to beat them in an all-out brawl, so a deck of playing cards isn't going to raise any suspicion until it's too late," Vertiya explained. "Plus, when it comes to Grimm, cards aren't exactly difficult to carry, so I'll be able to keep it on me in case of the worst. And if it can kill Grimm, then there's not a problem there."  
"Eh, true," Yimesz responded, as the doorbell rung through the house. "I assume you're not going to get up to get that?"  
"Well I don't need to, seeing you're already half way there," Vertiya responded smoothly, grinning a little. Sure enough, Yimesz was already off the table, and on the way to the door. Vertiya got back to writing, and didn't even look up when Yimesz came back.

"Err… Vertiya, you may be needed here," Yimesz said, a tiny tremble to his voice. It wasn't the mild anxiety of Yimesz's tone that got Vertiya's attention, it was merely the fact that Yimesz used her full name.  
"Who could possibly need to speak to m- General Ironwood!" Vertiya replied, shock in her tone as she realised who the guest was. Immediately Vertiya was on her feet as a sign of respect, but Ironwood, laughed, waving a hand in the air.  
"Please, you're not even at Atlas Academy yet, let alone in the military. At ease," Ironwood said with a small smile, causing Vertiya to relax a little in her pose. "See, as much as I can communicate by letter, I figured coming here in person would make things a whole lot easier. Besides, I needed to speak to your father about an upcoming project we have going, and of course, it made sense to speak to you whilst I was here anyway."  
"Oh, about coming to Atlas Academy?" Vertiya asked. "I was actually in the middle of drafting something for it to send to you. Did you want to see it?"  
"Don't worry about that, I've already made my decision," Ironwood explained, beckoning towards a sofa, which both Vertiya and Yimesz sat down on, Ironwood taking a seat on a chair opposite it. "Yimesz, I've had a look at your files, and from what I saw, you're a particularly good fighter, but fall short when it comes to academia. Would that be correct?"  
Yimesz was about to respond, but Vertiya knew what his sort of response would be, and elbowed him before he could say a word. Turning to look at his twin sister briefly, Yimesz sighed, before turning back to General Ironwood. "Yeah, my concentration span isn't always the greatest. I'm working on it though," Yimesz explained.  
"Well, concentration is definitely an aspect of yourself that you will need in order to become a successful huntsman," Ironwood pointed out. "That being said, I don't like missing opportunities where they lie, and although Alsius recommends against it, I decided to give you a shot."  
Vertiya felt as stunned as Yimesz looked. It had taken her months of writing to try and persuade Ironwood to even consider letting Yimesz in, and here he was, saying it as though it had been assured all along. "Wait… so you're saying…"  
"Yes Vertiya, Yimesz is accepted into Atlas Academy," Ironwood finished for her. "Which means, I hope, that you'll accept your invitation as well?" he added, raising an eyebrow.  
Vertiya paused for a moment. Admittedly, Atlas was renowned for its innovative technology, and that would be a huge help for her. She still needed an outfit that would allow for her semblance – at the moment, if she wanted to use her semblance properly… Vertiya didn't like to think about it. Being at Atlas would mean she'd be able to create something to go with it. However, Atlas was renowned for having a heavy military focus, and that was something that really didn't grab Vertiya by the heart. However, she was trying to get Yimesz into a huntsman academy, and she knew full well that he wouldn't get all the way through if she wasn't there as well. "Of course I will," Vertiya replied, smiling.  
"Perfect," Ironwood replied, standing up from the chair he was sat in. "Just remember though, even though you have been accepted, does not mean you will manage to progress all the way through Atlas Academy. We run a strict and tightly knit course involving many tests and hard training, as well as education into Grimm and the many enemies you may face as a huntsman or huntress. And not only that: Atlas is known for getting more applicants than we have spaces for teaching. We only have enough resources to allow up to 16 huntsmen or huntresses at Atlas this year, and we already have more than 50 applicants accepted in, so you can imagine we will have to whittle down the number. But, if you can make it through initiations, I have full assurance that you can succeed at Atlas. However, you have to beat the first hurdle before you can complete the race," Ironwood explained to the two twins. "Now, I do need to go speak to your father. But I look forward to seeing you both at Atlas soon," he concluded, before leaving the room.  
Vertiya and Yimesz looked at each other, both shocked. Yimesz because he actually got accepted into an academy, and Vertiya for more or less the exact same reason. However, it was Vertiya who broke the silence first. "You know, if we do get through the initiation, whether we're on the same team or not, you are gonna have to do some academic work on your own as well. I can't bail you out of everything," Vertiya told him.  
"Yeah, well, we'll get to that when we get there," Yimesz responded, relaxing back into the sofa. "I mean, we can't be doing exams as soon as we get there, can we?"  
"True," Vertiya replied, shrugging a little. "Well then, I guess I finally do get a chance to relax, seeing as what I've been doing for the last couple months is finally done. We're going to Atlas."


	2. Chapter 2

"You are all, in short, here because you all showed potential to become great huntsmen and huntresses whilst you were at the different primary combat schools across Remnant. I am not one to miss out on potential. That being said, although I pride myself on having one of the best academies available, it is perhaps one of the smallest. Some of you here already know this, but we only ever have space for 16 potential huntsmen and huntresses, and standing before me are 71 boys and girls fighting for those spots. As you can tell, we are going to have to whittle down the amount of you there are here until we have just 16 left."  
General Ironwood was stood up on a stage, pacing around in front of a podium, with all the other teachers stood there as well. Vertiya and Yimesz were stood in a crowd of boys and girls roughly the same age as them, all with various weapons, some wielding fairly normal swords, rapiers, and so on, whereas other kids had more unusual ones: Vertiya could spot claws, leg blades, and even one girl wielding a pair of fans. Although Vertiya was curious to see what everyone was using, General Ironwood spoke up again, and Vertiya turned her attention back to him.  
"Now, to do that, we have a series of tests you will have to undergo. There will be various stages which will eliminate potential students until we reach a total of 32. By this point, we will have an idea of who works well together, and will draft you into 8 teams of four. In order to get down to 16, or four teams, each of the eight teams will be matched against each one other team randomly. The winning team from each battle will get in. The losing team, I'm afraid, will not."  
"Did he just say what I think he said?" Yimesz mumbled out of the corner of his mouth to Vertiya, not breaking eye contact with the stage.  
"Yeah, and it sounds like I'm going to be carrying your sorry ass through this as well, aren't I," Vertiya replied, also not breaking eye contact.  
"Always the complimentary one," Yimesz responded, before Ironwood went on.  
"The first stage is straightforward enough. Each of you will have to go against a simulation of a Grimm by yourself, in a one versus one environment. For obvious reasons, you will not be able to take any help from any outside source. If you defeat the Grimm, you will move on to the next stage. If not, you will unfortunately have to leave. There's a catch, however: in a realistic situation, if you get jumped on by Grimm, you will not have a chance to prepare for what Grimm you are fighting. As such, the Grimm you will battle will be randomised directly prior to fighting it. Although it is random, there is always only one student who will end up battling a Nevermore. No one has succeeded yet."  
Ironwood's last point sent a ripple of murmurs throughout the group of kids. After all, Nevermores were incredibly tough to kill even as a team, so to think that someone would have to battle one by themselves was dumbfounding. Sure, it was only a simulation, but just the thought of fighting one was panic worthy.  
"Odds on you getting the Nevermore?" Yimesz said, nudging Vertiya and grinning.  
Vertiya sighed, shaking her head. "If you weren't a dork, I'd say one in seventy-one. Unfortunately, you are though, so let's just say first round on me if I am. First round on you if I'm not, though."  
"You know, just in case it does happen, I'll go with it," Yimesz replied, before the teachers moved off the stage. As they did, the stage lowered into the ground, with screens coming down from the ceiling above it. It practically looked like an arena – which, Vertiya reminded herself, was most likely the angle they were going for.  
"Anyway, first up, Plutonine Hawkrest?" Ironwood called out, at which point a boy who looked a little older than most of the general group half walked, half staggered forward and into the arena, drinking out of what looked something like a hip flask. Ironwood didn't look impressed, but either way he still moved out of the area, getting out his scroll and typing something into it. Various images of Grimm flashed on the screen, before it finally stopped on the image of a Boarbatusk. Right on cue, a Boarbatusk appeared, almost as though it was scanned in in 3D.  
"Well, I guess everyone has their own fighting styles," Vertiya said, a little concerned. The guy, Plutonine, looked rather drunk, and hardly even aware of anyone in the area, let alone the Boarbatusk.  
"Well, they did say they need to get rid of some of the number here," Yimesz pointed out. Plutonine didn't even seem to have a weapon on him; all he had was a hip flask. "So, I guess after this we should be down to seventy? Odds of getting in will be better then."  
"I'm not going to assume anything yet," Vertiya replied, as a bell went off, and the Boarbatusk charged.

Plutonine was not phased in the slightest by the charging Boarbatusk coming straight at him, and didn't even seem to get out a weapon. Instead, once the Grimm was close enough, Plutonine, in one smooth move, grabbed the Boarbatusk mid-charge by one of its tusks, and span, launching it towards the other side of the arena. The Boarbatusk slammed into what looked like thin air, until a small ripple of blue spread out from where it hit and it became clear there was some sort of force field around the arena. The Boarbatusk looked rattled upon landing, but almost immediately it was back up on his feet, and charging again.  
"I'm surprised, I thought he'd be out on the first attack."  
Vertiya thought that Yimesz said it. Yimesz thought Vertiya had said it. As it turned out, neither of them had. It was the girl who was wielding the pair of fans, who had somehow ended up next to them.  
"Yeah, I thought so too, guess we're alike in that manner. I'm Yimesz," Yimesz said, instantly turning on his charm, as he always did whenever talking to a girl. Vertiya sighed, before shimmying to the side. She wasn't particularly interested in listening to Yimesz flirt – granted, he was good at it, but that didn't mean she was bothered about getting tips. Vertiya had other things to deal with first –getting through Atlas was higher up the priority list.  
"Cute, but I wasn't talking to you," the girl replied coolly, walking past Yimesz and towards Vertiya. Vertiya was as shocked as Yimesz's expression showed, but she still managed to somehow hear Yimesz mumble something like, 'always the dykes' before he moved away. "That your brother, I take it?" the girl asked Vertiya.  
"I… um… Twin, to be precise," Vertiya replied, a little hesitantly. "I'm a little, err, disconcerted though. Why me?" she asked. Most people never took interest in Vertiya – she was the bookworm, Yimesz was the social king. He got the attention usually, and lapped it up. Vertiya was an introvert after all, and usually much preferred the company of herself, or at most, her brother.  
"You seemed interesting. And no, not for the reason your brother mumbled," the girl explained to her. "From what I can see, there are two kids in this room who don't have an obvious weapon. One is currently fighting a Grimm, whilst too drunk to realise probably what day it is, let alone what he's meant to be doing at the moment. You are the other. And considering I have the choice of a pirate wannabe or someone who looked like reasonable conversation, my mind was made," she explained. "I'm Fen, by the way."  
"Vertiya," Vertiya replied. The girl, Fen, was a similar height to Vertiya – maybe a tiny bit taller – but unlike the long, flowing green hair that Vertiya had, Fen's was remarkably short, shorter than Yimesz's. Not only that though, she had some sort of bandana covering the lower half of her face, meaning her only visible facial feature were ruby red eyes. Vertiya had never seen eyes that colour – sure, hers and Yimesz's were a distinctive lime green that was also highly uncommon, but red was almost as uncommon as silver. "Besides, some people have… uncommon fighting styles. Drunken fist is a thing, or so I'm told," Vertiya pointed out, before a sound of commotion ripple through the audience. Vertiya turned, and although the Boarbatusk had started charging again, the boy, Plutonine, was more concerned about the fact his hip flask was empty. Groaning, he twisted the lid back on, and the hip flask transformed into what could only be resembled as a ship's cannon, which was held in both hands by Plutonine. With a mighty roar, Plutonine fired the cannon, and a giant cannonball shot out, slamming straight into the Boarbatusk. "Or… uncommon ways of concealing their weapons?" Vertiya added.  
"You're one to talk," Fen replied. "Or are you saving the big reveal for when you end up on the stage?"  
"Let's just say I'm also not one for… conventional battling," Vertiya said, and through sleight of hand a card suddenly appeared in between Vertiya's index and middle finger, before she extended it to Fen, who took it and looked at it with a lot of concentration.  
"Dust embedded cards? Definitely not your average rapier," Fen said, handing the card back to Vertiya. "Why the unconventional weapon, if you don't mind me asking?"  
"I was never really that good at standard fighting myself, I preferred to use wits to beat my opponent," Vertiya explained to her. "So, all things considered, I decided to use something that fit my style, and I enjoyed doing magic tricks when I was younger, so I felt like cards was the best fit for me. Besides, it catches people out."  
"Well, I'm curious as to how they work," Fen told her, as what sounded like a wheel spinning came from the arena. The Boarbatusk, clearly aggravated, had gone into a wheel formation, and was spinning rapidly on the spot, before charging towards Plutonine. Laughing, Plutonine pressed something on his cannon, causing it to transform into what resembled a large battle hammer. Changing his stance, he started wielding the hammer as if it were a baseball bat, and when the Boarbatusk lifted off the ground in an attempt to hit Plutonine in the torso, the boy swung, slamming straight into the Grimm and causing it to dissolve into fragments behind him.  
"I guess he wasn't out on the first attack?" Vertiya said, but her tone was surprised if anything. Most people, after all, hardly expected a drunk to be able to take out a Grimm with such apparent ease, yet here Plutonine was, stumbling his way out of the arena with his weapon now back as a hip flask.  
"Eh, he'll probably be out before the team fights, I'd imagine. If not, good luck to whoever has to deal with him," Fen pointed out.

The next batch of fights went by without anything particularly interesting happening. Some got simple Beowolves, some got Ursas, one particular girl was unfortunate enough to get a Death stalker, and as such she and a few others had already been knocked out by the Grimm. Vertiya was not a fan of the randomness of this trial, but she wasn't exactly going to go against Ironwood's way of teaching on the first day. He had his reasons for this test being this way, which he had stated before, after all.  
"Yimesz Hylae."  
Vertiya started paying attention at this point. After all, it was her brother up next, and she could quite easily see him heading up to the stage, being cheered by a small gathering. Vertiya sighed, but not with shock. After all, he was exactly like this at Alsius, so Vertiya knew full well that if he was left alone, he'd find a group of primarily females within a couple of minutes.  
The randomisation process started, and Yimesz was looking up at the screen in a rather bored matter, until he saw what was up against. A Beowolf. Vertiya could make out Yimesz's facial expression, basically saying 'is that it', until she realised what was appearing above the word Beowolf: Alpha. Alpha Beowolves were no easy feat, and although there had already been something like 20 fights by this point, not one had cropped up yet. Yimesz's facial expression dropped when he too realised what he was up against, and instead he raised his fists, knuckledusters at the ready as the Alpha Beowolf spawned in, roaring at Yimesz. It stood almost 5 feet over him.  
"Come on Yi, you are not getting knocked out this quickly," Vertiya mumbled to herself, concerned. With all the effort she had taken to get Yimesz into Atlas, she was not about to see him get knocked out at the first hurdle.


	3. Chapter 3

"Well, I guess I should have expected this," Yimesz mumbled to himself, circling the Alpha Beowolf. The bell hadn't rung yet, so Yimesz was simply waiting, getting ready to make the first strike. Vertiya knew full well that Yimesz wasn't trying to think up tactics – his usual style was go hard or go home, punch first questions later. She disagreed with it, but it worked for him.  
However, Vertiya couldn't really spend any more time in anxiety as the bell rang, and both Yimesz and the Beowolf leaped at each other, claw meeting fist with immense power. Both Yimesz and the Grimm slid back on the floor from the rebound of the impact, but within seconds they were charging at each other again.  
"Well as much as I assumed he'd be sub-par thanks to his personality, your brother seems to have started off reasonably well," Fen said, arms folded and watching Yimesz with the tiniest hint of interest.  
"Yeah, he's both full of himself and he has the fighting ability to back it up," Vertiya explained, as Yimesz connected a hard uppercut into the Beowolf followed by multiple head shots from the revolvers he had swapped his knuckledusters into. "Kind of annoying really, but I've gotten used to it."  
"I can definitely tell you have the standard brother-sister relationship at least," Fen replied, as the Beowolf got back up and swiped at Yimesz, causing him to jump back a couple of feet in order to avoid the attack. "Let me guess, he's the brawn, you're the brain?"  
"Something like that," Vertiya responded. "Like don't get me wrong, I love him and all, he just does a great job of getting on my nerves way too often. It's thanks to me he's even here in the first place, to be honest," she added, over the sound of Yimesz's revolvers firing.  
"Not able to get in himself, hmm?" Fen queried, quirking an eyebrow. "I'm going to assume that, considering his physical prowess, it was due to something more in the academic region that he struggles in?"  
"Yeah, he never really had the effort to bother with studying," Vertiya said, as Yimesz went hard in, landing multiple punches in quick succession, but eventually got hit by a hard swing from the Beowolf straight to the jaw, knocking him off balance, followed up by the Beowolf picking him up and throwing him into the barrier. Yimesz took a little time to get up, but after clicking his neck, he dove straight back in.  
"Does he have, like, a defensive state, or does he just go head first into everything?" Fen asked. Yimesz was dishing out hits, sure, but he was starting to take a few as well at this point, and there were visible injuries starting to show. Not only that, he was tiring from the fight.  
Vertiya knew what was coming though, and hardly looked concerned. It may be that she was just able to read people well, but Vertiya could read through what Yimesz was doing. "Not really. But then, he does have his semblance," Vertiya said.  
Sure enough, Yimesz had backed off a little bit, and was doing odd movements with his arms, almost like tai chi. After a couple of seconds of this, Yimesz thrust out his hands, and a weird, red stream started coming out of the Beowolf and towards Yimesz. The longer it went on, the more of Yimesz's injuries vanished, until eventually he looked as good as new. The Beowolf fell onto all fours, breathing heavily, which gave Yimesz ample time to walk up to it, position himself, and punch the Grimm smack in the head, vaporising it. A loud cheer erupted from the group that was cheering him up, and Yimesz gave a small bow, grinning as he exited the arena.  
"Did he just drain the life out of that Grimm?" Fen asked, her expression mildly surprised.  
"Yeah, that's his semblance. It's more or less the reason he doesn't ever go defensive – if he gets injured, he can just steal the aura out of an attacker, or life force if it's a Grimm, allowing him to be back up at it and his opponent more vulnerable," Vertiya explained. Secretly though, Vertiya was relieved. Although she got less concerned throughout the fight, she had that underlying anxiety from the start. But at least Yimesz made it through the first stage. Vertiya needed to focus on getting herself through now.

Vertiya had spent the last few fights carefully analysing the people who had been fighting – after all, they could either be the people she ended up teaming with, or they could be the team that she'd be up against in the final round. As such, Vertiya wanted to be prepared, and researching people was something she was good at. However, she got interrupted by the sound of a familiar voice in her ear.  
"So, did I get an A plus for that fight?" Yimesz asked, leaning an elbow on Vertiya's shoulder and grinning.  
"Well depends, do you want me to give you the nice response, or the one where I point out the ineffective punches you threw out, the unnecessary hits you took, and the bullets that completely missed?" Vertiya replied with a quirked eyebrow.  
"Being extra savage today, it seems," Yimesz replied, laughing it off. He half expected a response like that, to be honest, but he thought he'd ask anyway.  
"Hold on, you're calling ME the savage one here?" Vertiya said, nodding her head over to the arena, where a boy was almost literally ripping apart a Grimm with his hands. It wasn't quite his hands – his arms were covered in a blade each – but it sure looked like it. "To be fair, you did do a good job. Good usage of your semblance, powerful knockout punch… You won't be coming up against many Alpha Beowolves I'd imagine, but just be careful otherwise. You did well in a 1v1, but the way you handled it, if there were more, you'd struggle."  
"Shouldn't you be there to back me up though?" Yimesz teased, as the boy who was ripping up the Grimm left the arena. Vertiya was just about able to make out the fact he was a Faunus before the next name was called.  
"Ruzovi Saffyer."  
"I didn't realise the Saffyers had a daughter," Vertiya thought out loud, as a girl who looked tiny made her way up to the arena. On her back was a quiver of arrows, as well as a bo staff which looked larger than her.  
"That's because you don't keep up with anything that isn't academic," Yimesz pointed out. The Saffyers were a well-known family in Atlas, renowned for owning the finest weapon making factories in Remnant. They were almost at a celebrity status. "That being said, I thought she was only like, what, 14?"  
"Well she definitely looks younger than everyone else here," Vertiya pointed out. It was true, Ruzovi had very young-looking features, and her height didn't help her at all. "Wonder what she'll be up against."  
The Grimm started flashing on the screens, slowing down to something that made near everyone gasp. Soon enough, a giant, two headed snake started constructing in the arena.  
"Well, I suppose if you don't want kids too young to get in to your academy, you chuck out a King Taijitu at them," Yimesz said, who had now stopped leaning on his sister and had his arms folded. "My money's on two minutes before she gets knocked out."  
"One day you are going to stop gambling, and the world will be a better place," Vertiya sighed, exasperated, as she watched the tiny girl and the giant Grimm stare each other off until the bell rang. This fight she was particularly interested in.

Ruzovi was locked on to the black head of the Taijitu, following its movements but neither going for an attack. However, the white head was slowly making its way to behind the young girl, and Ruzovi hadn't seemed to notice it preparing for an attack.  
"Changed my mind. Make it one minute," Yimesz whispered to Vertiya, resulting in him getting an elbow in the side. Vertiya had an inkling of a feeling that Ruzovi was trying to bait the Grimm, but she wasn't totally convinced. Nevertheless, the white head of the Taijitu raised up, before lunging at the back of Ruzovi's head. However, Vertiya was proven right with her assumption, because without breaking eye contact with the black head, Ruzovi's staff ended up in her right hand, and she twisted her body, slamming the end of the staff she wasn't holding straight into the side of the white head of the Taijitu, which shrieked, and pulled back. Smiling, Ruzovi followed up, leaping towards the black head and feinting an attack to the neck of the black half of the Grimm, before slamming the bo staff into the top of its skull.  
"Still one minute?" Vertiya asked, as both heads of the Taijitu lunged at Ruzovi, who bent backwards in such an inhuman way that the two heads crashed into each other, leaving Ruzovi to complete the backwards bend with a kick into a backwards cartwheel that sent the Grimm a few feet backwards. "That being said, that flexibility is… uncanny."  
"Semblance?" Yimesz suggested, which Vertiya nodded her head in agreement with. There was no way she could be that bendy – her shins would have broken with the angle she was at. Ruzovi was making the most of the fact that there was a gap between her and the Taijitu though – her bow had bent backwards into a bow shape, and she reached towards the quiver on her back, pulling out two arrows and firing them at the same time, hitting each head in the right eye.  
"Well, this fight is definitely not going the way I originally predicted," Vertiya said, but she was still taking in everything. The Taijitu, now with only one eye in each head, was enraged, and was attacking at Ruzovi with extra force, but with superb control of her bo staff, Ruzovi could deflect and parry near everything: blocking bites, parrying tail whips, and even counter attacking at expertly timed intervals, and soon enough the white head of the Taijitu fell, and didn't get back up.  
"You're not the only one surprised," Yimesz added, and as the black head lunged again, Ruzovi blocked the attack with her staff head on, which pushed her back a few metres but not knocking her over, and in one swift move she knocked up the black head of the Grimm, and as it came back down, she lunged forward, piercing her bo into the other eye of the Taijitu, killing it. Near everyone's mouth was ajar at this feat as Ruzovi put her bo back onto her back, leaving the arena.  
"I guess that's how she got in here then," Vertiya said, but she did have a small smile on her lips. Ruzovi had just beaten perhaps the hardest Grimm that had been seen so far, as well as doing it in the quickest time. She was definitely one to watch – or even befriend.  
"That or the parents," Yimesz pointed out.

The last bunch of fights went without much happening. Vertiya paid attention to when Fen went up, using her fans with great skill to quickly dispose of an Ursa, and Vertiya did not miss the hooks that came out of them which Fen did a smooth finisher with – flipping over the Ursa, hooking the Ursa by the head and launching the Grimm as she landed, sending the Grimm flying towards the walls of the arena, killing it upon impact. Soon enough, Vertiya was the last one left to fight, and she was more than ready to take on a Grimm. However, she was set a little aback by the look on Yimesz's face. The last time Yimesz looked at her with that much concern, it was because of when she was at her dad's factory and an explosion almost killed her.  
"What's up Yimesz?" Vertiya asked, furrowing her eyebrows and putting her hands on her hips. However, she soon noticed Yimesz was not the only person looking at her. A lot of people had eyes on her – some with fearful expressions, some grimacing, and others shaking their head.  
"Do you remember what General Ironwood said at the start of this trial?" Yimesz asked, his voice a little quieter than usual.  
"What, about it being one versus one? I can handle myself," Vertiya replied, a little confused as to what Yimesz was trying to imply.  
"No, not that. The bit where he said the one type of Grimm that no one has beaten," Yimesz explained.  
It was at that point that Vertiya realised what Yimesz was trying to imply. "The Nevermore," Vertiya said, her voice also quiet now.  
"Ironwood said that there is always one kid who has to fight it. It hasn't been seen yet, and you're the last to go up," Yimesz continued.  
"Vertiya Hylae."  
"You better get your act together to get through this academy on your own for me or so help me if you come back home I will kill you," Vertiya whispered, as she made her way through the crowd of kids to the arena. She got a short period of eye contact with Ironwood – who for some reason, didn't have an expression of concern, more something resembling curiosity – before she was stood in the arena. She didn't bother to look at the screens as they flicked through the Grimm, because she already knew what was coming long before the giant black crow started constructing, roaring at her when it was fully formed.  
Vertiya, however, was flipping a gold card through the fingers of her right hand behind her back, pushing her hair out of her eyes with her left. She knew that the chances of her getting through this stage now was infinitesimally small. But she was damn well going to try.


	4. Chapter 4

You could hear a pin drop in the ominous silence throughout the room until the bell rang, the tension was that great. Vertyia, though, wasn't sat there in panic. She was carefully looking at the Nevermore, trying to find any potential weak spots. However, the bell rang just before she'd checked everywhere, so in order to give herself a bit more time, she chucked the yellow card that was in her fingers at the Nevermore, hitting it square in the face. The Nevermore shook its head, but it did little more than stun it for a second. However, when the Grimm looked back to where its prey was, there was nothing. Having activated her semblance, Vertiya was repositioning, still trying to find a chink in the armour. Soon enough, she spotted one, and deactivated her semblance, chucking a blue card at the Nevermore's foot, freezing it to the floor. Vertiya followed up with a small barrage of red cards, carefully thrown towards the Nevermore's head. The Nevermore shrieked as it got hit by the cards that exploded on contact, trying to dodge them to no avail thanks to the ice sticking it to the ground. That wasn't long lived, though, as the Grimm flew upwards, breaking the ice that trapped its foot, and once it was up in the air, it dived downwards at Vertiya. Vertiya, however, grinned. Working out the speed it was diving at, within the last possible second Vertiya activated her semblance again, becoming invisible and diving out of the flight path, leaving the Nevermore to crash into the ground. This merely dazed the Nevermore, however, and as Vertiya attempted to follow up with another card after deactivating her semblance, the Nevermore swung its tail, catching Vertiya in the chest and flinging her towards the edge of the arena, causing her to hit the barrier hard. Vertyia dropped to the ground, a little winded, but got back up just as the Nevermore flew back up into the air once more. Vertiya was starting to realise that single cards, or even multiple thrown cards were doing little to damage the Grimm, even with her aim. She was going to have to try something else.

Vertiya didn't have long to prepare different techniques, though, because as soon as she was back standing, the Nevermore had dived again. Vertiya threw a blue card into the air – not at the Nevermore, just up in front of her – and as it started to fall back to the ground, she threw a red card, hitting the blue card in mid-air. This caused what seemed to be an explosion, but rather than fire, a weird ice formation erupted out of the card, spiking out and causing the Grimm to crash straight into it. The Nevermore shrieked as it hit, but it still crashed straight through it, although it did seem more rustled by this than Vertiya's previous attacks, and its flight pattern was a little off balance as it returned to the air. Vertiya had little time to celebrate, however, because the Nevermore flapped its giant wings, and a bombardment of feathers almost as large as Vertiya herself rained down on her. Vertiya was doing her best to duck and weave through the feather volley, throwing green cards at the ones she couldn't dodge and hence dissolving them, but it wasn't long before one of them caught her, leaving a nasty looking gash in her cheek. Groaning, Vertiya slapped a pink card on it, which healed it up enough to stop it from bleeding. That wasn't the only thing however – the pink card that had healed Vertiya had left her with a small pink glow, that lasted long enough for her to rip out a feather from the ground and launch it at the Nevermore, landing it straight through the torso and causing another shriek to erupt from the Nevermore, which dived again, however rather than head first, decided to lead with its huge and lethally sharp talons. Vertiya attempted the ice explosion combo again, but as the Nevermore led with the talons, simply grabbed the ice and slammed it into Vertiya, shattering it upon impact and leaving Vertiya visibly weakened. Vertiya struggled to get back to her feet, throwing a red card through a green card and creating a noxious looking gas aimed at the Nevermore, which flew back up to avoid it. Vertiya, however, was running out of aura, and hence was losing time.

The Nevermore, although weaker, was still attacking with as much power as it could, except by this point Vertiya was struggling to fend off the attacks, barely keeping the Grimm at bay. Vertiya still had one trick up her sleeve, but she didn't want to use it unless she had no other option. Revealing that ability now would mean it couldn't be used as a surprise later.  
That being said, the Nevermore whipped up a gust of wind at Vertiya, who wasn't able to stand her ground and got blown into the barrier again, falling on all fours and breathing heavily. Turning to the right, Vertiya caught Yimesz in the crowd, who, with a concerned expression, nodded.  
Vertiya looked back to the floor, but her eyes were no longer just the usual emerald green that they normally were. The whites and pupils of her eyes had also gone emerald green, and were glowing with enough luminosity to light up her whole face. Pushing herself up off the ground, Vertiya started floating a metre above it, but that wasn't the main surprise. Her cards had started rotating in a circle just behind her, and it wasn't just fifty-two – there were what looked like hundreds of various coloured cards in the circle. Without a hint of expression on her face, Vertiya gracefully extended her right arm, her index and middle finger pointing towards the Nevermore, and cards started breaking free from the circle. After they broke free, the cards started launching themselves towards the Grimm's head at machine-gun speed, causing it to shriek and fly backwards as it was pelted with various coloured explosions. Vertiya didn't stop there, but immediately followed up with what looked like a flap of her own arms, resulting in cards flying up in two lines perpendicular to each other, which curved in and slammed into either side of the Nevermore's neck. The sheer impact of the attack forced the Nevermore to go to ground, and it was visibly wounded from the card shower. Vertiya raised her left hand now, but rather than pointing towards the Nevermore, she had her hand out with an open palm as though offering something, and the remaining cards flew into a line from her towards the Grimm at her head height, all of which facing her. She reached into her hair, and pulled out a pure white card that glowed with an angelic light, before taking aim, and throwing. The white card flew through every card in the floating line, causing each card to shatter as it flew through, with the white card gaining small spots of colour with each card it broke. By the time it got to the Grimm, it had gone from white to black, and it went straight through the neck of the Nevermore and out the other side, causing the Nevermore to collapse to the floor, decapitated. Vertiya, however, had little time to celebrate, as her eyes returned to normal, and she fell almost in slow motion to the floor, unconscious from the effort she just exerted.

Vertiya awoke to a very white room, with more lights than she'd like on her, and a bed a little too comfortable to be normal. Her eyes were slow to open, and all Vertiya could feel was a splitting headache that caused her to shut her eyes again in discomfort.  
"Ah good, you're finally awake."  
That familiar voice forced Vertiya to, albeit hesitantly, reopen her eyes, and slowly turn to see Yimesz sat there, texting on his scroll. "You know, you're something of a celebrity at the moment after your feat," Yimesz added, not looking up.  
Vertiya remembered little of the ending. She knew she had thrown the white card, but after that, she only remembered darkness. "Wait… Did I actually kill the Nevermore?" Vertiya asked. Her voice was softer than usual, and slightly hoarse. She didn't like it.  
"Well, if you count beheading as killing, then sure," Yimesz replied, finally looking up. "You kinda passed out after you used your Hylae, and although some people were uncertain as to what that meant for the result, Ironwood was pretty clear: defeating the Grimm you were up against meant you moved on. You defeated the Grimm, so you're through."  
Yimesz spent the next period of time explaining what Vertiya had missed through being unconscious: there had been fifteen knockouts in total, meaning that there were only fifty-six left. The next stage wasn't for a couple of days, but they had been told it was a race of some form, and the first forty to cross the line would be the ones who moved on to the penultimate stage. However, they had been told in order to complete the course, they'd have to complete it with someone else alongside them.  
"You would not believe the amount of people who have asked me if I can tell you to do the race with them. I guess people clocked on to the fact we're related," Yimesz concluded.  
"Urgh… You're meant to be the one who gets all the attention, not me," Vertiya sighed, exhausted. Vertiya didn't like attention. She was the introvert. Yimesz was the extrovert. They had that balance set to perfection. Sure, Vertiya had been getting a bit of attention from guys for the last year or so, and she wasn't entirely sure why – there were plenty of girls who obviously flaunted their looks, and Vertiya tried to avoid doing that – as well as the fact she, well, wasn't entirely comfortable in her sexuality yet. But she could still avoid crowds relatively easily, mainly because Yimesz was able to draw them in so much. He knew how to woo girls, befriend guys, use his looks perfectly – they were twins, but not identical, and Vertiya was pretty convinced he got the better genes – and was just a social king.  
"Well, if you ever need teaching, maybe I can be the coach for a change," Yimesz suggested, laughing. His laugh was cut short, however, because into the ward came no other than General Ironwood himself.

"Yimesz, would you mind if you could give myself and your sister the room?" Ironwood asked Yimesz, who nodded, pushing himself up to his feet. "You did well against the Alpha, by the way," Ironwood added as Yimesz got to the door. Yimesz smiled, opening the door and letting himself out, closing it behind him.  
"General Ironwood? To what do I owe-" Vertiya said, interrupting herself with a cough, before continuing, "the pleasure?"  
"Well, by the sounds of things, I should be the one thankful to be in your company. Your feat against the Nevermore has impressed all of the initiates we have, as well as some of the teachers as well," Ironwood replied, taking a seat in the chair Yimesz was sat in moments before. "I've rarely seen power of that magnitude, especially seeing you aren't a fully trained huntress yet. In fact, I can only think of one other who has displayed such ability."  
Vertiya was reasonably sure who he was talking about. "My aunt? Women in the Hylae bloodline have always had the ability to use extreme power collaborating with their weapon in a pinch, but often at the cost of depleting aura. My aunt is… different, however. She's learnt to harness it so it doesn't use her aura." To call her an aunt was making her sound old – she was only a few years older than Vertiya herself, it's just she was her father's sister, so technically that was her title.  
"Indeed. I've actually had the rare chance to see her in battle, and it was astonishing," Ironwood said. "Which is part of the reason why I wanted to get you into Atlas. Having seen a Hylae battle, I knew I'd want to see the growth of one myself," he added.  
Vertiya had just gotten a thought off that, however. "The Nevermore… was that entirely random?" she asked, curious and now sitting up in the bed.  
"Admittedly, no. I was fairly confident that none of the other initiates wouldn't be able to take on a Nevermore, and I wanted to see if you'd be able to, so I threw you in at the deep end, and it seems to have made you rather famous," Ironwood explained to her. "That being said, I don't want you getting knocked out on the next stage just because of the fight with the Nevermore. I suppose you could call it bias, but if you're not going to be recovered by the next stage, I can push it back. I think the other initiates want you on their team now as it stands, anyway."  
"No no, don't hold the next stage for me, I'll recover by then," Vertiya said, coughing again. If there was one thing Vertiya didn't like, it was people waiting to do things because she was indisposed. "Besides, a little race can't be that hard, can it?"  
Ironwood simply smiled in response, pushing himself up off the chair. "I did notify your parents purely because you were unconscious and I felt they needed to know, but I have also told them you are recovering fine. They are incredibly impressed and proud that you managed to take on a Giant Nevermore, even if it was a simulation, by yourself. If you need anything, you can always contact me, but I'm sure all you need right now is rest," Ironwood said, heading to the door.  
"Erm, General Ironwwod, one more question if I may. Why were you battling alongside my aunt?" Vertiya queried, as Ironwood lay a hand on the door.  
Ironwood stopped with a hand on the door, not turning to face Vertiya. "There was a Grimm invasion along the east of the main city of Atlas a couple years back. Myself and the military were holding them off, until a giant, praying mantis shaped Grimm appeared, and started crushing its way through our forces. We would have had to retreat, had your aunt not showed up. I'd heard of tales of what she was like when she was training at Haven, but to truly it with my own eyes… Makes full sense why her team was the only team known to win the Vytal Festival both times they competed," Ironwood explained. "But I'm sure you know of that last part already. Get some sleep, if I'm not going to be delaying the second phase, I want to see you at your best for that point," Ironwood said, exiting the room.  
Vertiya rolled over, slowing falling into a daze. She hadn't actually seen her aunt in a while, and in their brief encounters, she rarely spoke of her adventures. But Vertiya was definitely going to ask about them next time they met.


	5. Chapter 5

It had been two days since the first stage, and although she wasn't at 100 percent, Vertiya was out of the recovery room. Yimesz was right though – as soon as she was wandering around the academy grounds, she was getting bombarded by people about battling the Nevermore, the next stage, what ability she used if her semblance was invisibility, and a whole host of things. At one point, Vertiya, in order to escape everyone, used her semblance again, and made her way to a more private location. She was glad her father made her the armour he had just before she left for Atlas – it worked alongside her semblance, rather than just leaving her as a bunch of clothes floating through the air. Besides, there were only three people she could see herself doing the next stage with: her brother for obvious reasons, Fen because she was the closest thing Vertiya had a friend to at the moment, and the Saffyer girl for her sheer talent. No one knew how the pairing system would work, however, so Vertiya was just hoping that however it worked, she wouldn't be stuck with someone she didn't get on with or would otherwise have to carry. After all, from what Ironwood had said when they first started, it was pretty obvious whoever the pairs were would end up in a team together. Vertiya had little more time to think about that though, because it was at that point that an intercom told all students to make their way to the air dock, and on her own, Vertiya made her way towards it, soon bumping into Fen on the way.

"Good to see you're back up and at them," Fen said to her, as they walked through the Atlas academy corridors together. "Your fight was definitely impressive. Guess I should keep an eye out for those cards."  
Vertiya let out a small smile, flipping a card through her fingers as she usually did. "Yeah, I surprised myself by doing that. I've fought Grimm before with the cards, but never a Nevermore, let alone by myself. I was hoping to leave the trump card for a later date, rather than use it in the first stage."  
"Puns aside – under the assumption that that was a pun and not the fact that your white card is literally called a 'trump card' – it was a pretty nifty ability. However, I'm guessing that you have access to that ability outside of your semblance? I did see you go invisible a few times," Fen asked, curious.  
Vertyia hesitated for a moment. The only people who knew about the Hylae were the Hylae family themselves, and a select few other individuals. Vertiya decided to just leave it a little vague. "It's a family thing, some people in my blood line have access to strong power in a pinch," she explained. That kept it vague enough.  
Fen caught on to the fact Vertiya didn't go into detail, but decided to leave it be. "What I'd give to have two different abilities," Fen said, smiling. "Had any thought about the next stage yet?"  
"A little. A race sounds a little… unorthodox. I reckon it'll be more something like we'll all start in different locations, and have to get to some location," Vertiya replied. "You know who you're gonna try and find in there?"  
"I know more about who I'd rather not find, than who I would," Fen responded, and to be honest, Vertiya agreed. Sure, chances were, finding someone you wanted were low with the amount there were, but one could hope. "Not that we can consider it much anymore," Fen added, nodding in front of her, and Vertiya looked up to see the other students, near a huge air carrier.

Vertiya had soon found herself in a rather claustrophobic glass capsule, with glass underneath to see down below. It was not particularly comfortable – they were a long way up from the ground, and although it was impossible to see the ground with the enveloping mist that covered it, there was still a level of anxiety.  
"Now you all know the basis of this. Get to the end with someone else before everyone else, and you're through. Be one of the last pairs to get to the exit, and you're out," Ironwood explained, strolling up and down between the row of drop pods the initiates were in. "However, how you're going to be paired is a little different. First person you come across when you're on the ground will be your partner, and yes, although it is similar to what goes on in Beacon, it's a tried and trusted formula. You're all going to be dropped off at random intervals into the 1000 acre forest below us, and it's your job to get to the clearing in the centre of it, which you'll recognise by the large fountain stood in the centre. I hope you all have landing strategies."  
Vertiya gulped. She didn't actually have one yet – she'd only had the cards for a month or so after all, but she was coming up with ideas.  
"Good luck," Ironwood said, dropping the first capsule. Vertiya looked down, to see a boy with a rapier in front of him dive straight down, spinning so fast he made a torpedo effect. Vertiya was still contemplating how to go about it as initiates dropped down left and right of her, before she slipped a few brown cards into her hands. It was most likely the best option.

More students were dropping out of the pods, and Vertiya saw a couple she recognised: the Saffyer girl had used her bo staff like a helicopter to glide down safely, Fen had used the hooks on her fans to extend them out, creating a wingsuit for herself, and Yimesz had curled up into a ball, rolling downwards but using his revolvers to slow his descent. Soon enough it was just Vertiya left alone – again.  
"You still sure you're ready for this?" Ironwood asked. "I can drop you closer if it makes it any easier for you."  
"As much as I know you want to train up a Hylae, I'm not going to be doing myself any favours if I get special bonuses," Vertiya responded. "Plus, favouritism wouldn't look too good anyway, and I need to keep my game up. Grimm won't go easy on me just because I'm exhausted."  
"Very well. I'll see you at the end of this," Ironwood said, dropping the pod.  
Vertiya felt the rush of wind as the pod exploded, but carried on falling. She knew full well she had to reach enough speed before she could activate her idea, and once she was at what she considered to be terminal velocity, she chucked the six brown cards up in the air, followed by an assortment of pink cards. The brown cards almost immediately expanded, and the pink cards caught onto the gaps and stuck them together, creating a makeshift parachute. There were enough pink cards coming from the sides of the parachute that Vertiya could hold onto them like string, and thanks to the pink cards' sticking mechanism, they stuck to her hands, making it easy to hold onto them when she suddenly lost most of her downwards momentum. Drifting safely towards the ground, Vertiya had enough time to look out for where the centre of the forest is, but she had no obvious bearing. Everything just seemed to be trees, and any clearing that was meant to be visible was hidden from her eyes. Coming close to the top of the treeline, Vertiya disassembled her parachute mid-air, and dropped onto a thick branch of a tree, stowing the pink and brown cards away before hopping down to the floor. Once she was down, Vertiya pulled out a pink card, holding it in her hand briefly until it floated up a few inches from her open palm, spinning in the air. Although she did often prefer being on the offensive, the amount of varying abilities her support card offered made it one of Vertiya's favourite cards to use. The pink card started to slow down, converging on one direction, until it stopped, pointing in the direction that Vertiya was now heading in.

Vertiya's journey had been, well, pretty easy. Granted, it was freezing, and Vertiya could see her breath form clouds of vapour in front of her, but she hadn't come across any Grimm yet, so the only thing she really had to deal with was terrain, and that wasn't hard to traverse with applications of various cards. She was almost under the impression that the lack of Grimm was deliberate, until she passed by a tree, and a small clearing revealed a small horde of Grimm – Beowolves, Ursas, and a Deathstalker to wrap it all off. Vertiya tried to backpedal quietly, but the Grimm had sensed something in the air, and all turned to look Vertiya dead in the eye. Vertiya knew she couldn't go invisible long enough to completely avoid them, so whipping out a couple of red cards, she knew full well it was a fight situation, and chucked the cards in her hand at the Beowolves. If she got rid of the weaker ones first, she could concentrate more effort onto the bigger ones after. Sure enough, the red cards were enough to wipe out the Beowolves, but Vertiya hardly had time to celebrate as she had to pop her semblance to get out of the way of an Ursa charging at her. Repositioning, Vertiya appeared and threw a brown card, followed by both a blue and red card through it, creating a massive ice boulder that flew at the Grimm horde, knocking them over like skittles. However, although most of the Beowolves were down, there were still a couple of Ursas, and the Deathstalker was hardly injured. Vertiya had to backwards roll and kick up as a Beowolf jumped at her, kicking it past her head, but in that moment of brief vulnerability the Deathstalker caught Vertiya with her tail and chucked her into a tree. Winded, and briefly stunned, Vertiya just about got out a green card and threw it at another Beowolf charging at her, causing it to disintegrate before her eyes. The Grimm were getting smart though, and rather than attack one at a time, they started rushing. Vertiya was struggling to fend off three Ursas all furiously swiping at her, and although she was kiting relatively well, she caught a tree root and fell backwards, with little time to get up, resulting in an Ursa roaring and clawing down. Vertiya was paralysed, and shut her eyes as the inevitable came… which never did. Opening her eyes, Vertiya could just about make a figure above her, who, in a flurry of moves, knocked all of the Ursas away from her.  
"You know, I know you consider me the lazy one, but I would definitely have gotten up by now," a familiar voice said, and Vertiya, rolling her eyes, accepted the hand that was held down to her, and let herself get pulled up. "Also, a) you're welcome and b) you owe me two drinks now," Yimesz added.  
"Well, it wasn't the worst person that I could be paired up with," Vertiya replied, pulling out more cards. "There's still a Deathstalker left, by the way," Vertiya added, a little tentative on her feet.  
"Chuck me a pink then," Yimesz said, at which Vertiya chucked a pink card to him. Yimesz held it in his hand, glowing pink briefly, and grinned, before charging with massively increased speed, ramming a fist into the Deathstalker between the eyes with enough power to cause it to explode. "Ever considered being a support?" Yimesz suggested.  
"Oh shut it," Vertiya replied, limping over to where Yimesz was. "Gimme the card back."  
Yimesz rolled his eyes in a way that resembled Vertiya, before chucking the pink card back to her. Vertiya slapped it on her injured leg, and within a couple of seconds, it was back to normal. Sighing, Vertiya took the card off her leg and held it in her palm again, and after a couple of seconds it started pointing away from the direction they were facing previously. Now a pair, Vertiya and Yimesz began jogging in the way the card pointed, trying to make up for lost time from the Grimm horde.

They hadn't been going for longer than 5 minutes when a female sounding cry caused both Vertiya and Yimesz to skid to a halt, and turn to the left where the sound came from. Vertiya could spot it before Yimesz: the Saffyer girl was struggling to fight off what looked full well like two other initiates, and had just taken a nasty mace hit to her left leg, causing her to sink to the ground.  
"Wait, you're allowed to fight each other in here? That seems a bit… unethical," Yimesz said, rubbing his head in confusion.  
"I doubt it, but the only rules we were told was that we had to be the first to get to the end," Vertiya said, but there was a slow building rage in her voice. "But to pick on just a girl, let alone the fact she's by herself… They're getting what's coming to them," she added, pulling out a green card. Vertiya usually refused to use raw green cards on people, for the sheer damage it could do, but she was going off impulse. However, just as she was in mid throw, an ear-shattering boom came from their right, and the boy standing over the Saffyer girl with the mace was sent blasting into a tree, knocked unconscious. Neither Vertiya or Yimesz could see where it came from, but they saw another boy with a sword jump to the right, only to also get sent flying backwards alongside a loud thud sound. Not moving, Vertiya and Yimesz could only watch as the drunk initiate wandered over to the Saffyer girl, hammer rested over his left shoulder. He offered a hand to the girl, who took it, and attempted to stand. However, she let out another cry of pain as she put weight on her injured leg, and sank into the pirate-looking boy's arms. The guy said something that couldn't be heard by Vertiya or Yimesz, but the Saffyer girl nodded weakly, and as such he lifted the girl up onto his shoulder, before jogging off the way he came.  
"I'm not entirely sure if that's a good combination or not," Vertiya said, stunned by the event that just took place in front of her. The pirate seemed to actually be better at fighting than Vertiya had originally given him credit for. Or at least, just ridiculously strong.  
"Skill and power? Seems reasonable enough," Yimesz responded. "I mean, after all, it's what we run as a pair. Only difference is that I have both and you have neither."  
"I will lace those drinks I owe you with bleach," Vertiya said, putting her face in her palm. However, thanks to their bickering, Vertiya and Yimesz didn't hear what was happening above them, and were caught unaware to the blast that hit Vertiya square in the back.


	6. Chapter 6

Vertiya's vision was blurry, and she wasn't aware of much other than the dull ache in her back. She knew her spine wasn't broken, but with that much impact on her back, she was dazed. Having landed face down, she could only just about turn her head to see Yimesz standing with fists raised, facing down a boy and a girl – the girl wielding what looked like a pair of nunchucks, the guy with a belt of grenades.

"So what, you're just gonna kill off everyone else so that you make it? Gee, and there I thought honour was still something people believed in," Yimesz said, fury in his voice. Yimesz wasn't like Vertiya in the sense that when she got angry, her voice got quiet. Yimesz made sure people knew he was angry.  
"Well, we were going to get Ruzovi, seeing she's way too young to be here, but people already beat us to that, and after seeing that pirate guy completely knock them both out, we decided there's no way we're fighting that," the grenade guy said, his voice cocky and assured.  
"So, we looked down, and BAM the teacher's pet happened to be there, and well we can't let someone get all the attention because they had a lucky break against a Nevermore, can we?" the girl added, swinging the nunchuck casually. "So we get rid of her, and the competition becomes both even, and fair again. Apologies you lost your partner, but you'll understand it's for the best."  
"You think I care about the fact she's my partner? She's my SISTER!" Yimesz yells, and with ferocity launches a punch at the boy, sending him back so far and so fast he crashes straight through two different trees before stopping. Groaning, he chucks a grenade at Yimesz and Vertiya, which explodes to surround the twins in smoke. When Yimesz could see again, the guy and girl had vanished. Growling, Yimesz returned back to Vertiya, who was starting to get back to her feet again. "You alright?" Yimesz asked, concerned.  
"I've definitely been better," Vertiya responded weakly, using a tree to push herself back up, before putting three pink cards on her back. "Who were they?"  
"Just a couple of idiots who couldn't even fight after a jammy surprise attack," Yimesz explained, still obviously angry as he helped Vertiya up. "Do you think you're able to walk? I can give you a hand if not."  
"I should be fine, I'm just not going to be running anywhere any time soon," Vertiya said, starting to carry on walking. Her steps were uncertain, but she was still able to move, however it was clear she was slow, thanks to the attack. "We need to move, though. We've been out here for a while, and I imagine that people will be making it to the centre of the forest soon."  
"Yeah, you have a point," Yimesz said, swapping his kunckledusters into revolvers, holding them at his sides. "If you spot anyone you like, tell me quick, because I'm going to shoot on sight. I'm not having any cheesy strategies by tryhard initiates."  
"I'll bear that in mind," Vertiya replied with a small smile, making sure she had a couple of red cards ready to go in case of another attack.

Vertiya and Yimesz didn't run into much following on from the surprise attack. They'd stumbled across a few Beowolves in the forest, but Vertiya could easily dispose of them even in her weakened state. By reading the pink card she was using as a compass, the twins knew they were only a mile or so away from the centre, and although their progress was noticeably slower, they were making reasonable time. Well, that was, until crashing through the forest came a boy, who was clearly fleeing something, crash straight into Yimesz and knock the pair of them over. Vertiya was about to grab a yellow card, but the girl who followed the boy caused her to stop. "Fen? Surprise to see you in here, I'd have thought you'd have finished by now," Vertiya said, smiling.  
"I could say the same to you as well," Fen replied, a little breathless as she dusted herself off. "I see you managed to come across your brother then? Probably a good pairing to say the least."  
"Yeah, at least this way I can make sure he actually gets through Atlas," Vertiya replied, looking at the tangle of boys now getting up. Yimesz was flaring up, revolvers back into knuckledusters, but after he saw Vertiya and Fen, although the boy looked about as furious as he felt, he realised there wasn't a threat and hence lowered his fists. "Who's your partner then?" Vertiya asked, looking at the boy.  
"That, is Tristov," Fen explained, and at the sound of his name Tristov turned to see why he was mentioned, nodding towards Vertiya. "Got me out of quite a rough spot, to be fair."  
"Is that why you were running?" Vertiya asked, and Fen's grim expression answered the question as easily as vocal confirmation would have. "What was it?"  
"Well it was originally just a Nevermore, not a Giant one like you had, just a somewhat large one. I didn't expect the follow up," Fen explained, recounting the story.

 _Fen rolled to the side as the Nevermore dived at her, slashing her fans at the Nevermore's torso in the manoeuvre. She knew the Grimm was weakening, but she couldn't take it down just yet. One more attack and she'd have it. Sprinting after the Nevermore, she threw one of her fans just as it was starting to take off, catching it in the wing and disrupting its flight. Screeching, the Nevermore rose up in the air as Fen caught her fan, before diving again. Fen, grinning, leapt up into the air, spinning so she was facing the same way as the Nevermore diving underneath her, before shooting hooks from both fans at the Nevermore, and leaning back in the air. The pull of the hooks caused the Nevermore to fly upwards, looping around Fen in the air at the length of the hooks once, before Fen dropped to the ground, pulling the Nevermore crashing head first into the ground behind her. Grinning, Fen detached her hooks from the Grimm, starting to walk off until she heard more screeching behind her. Fen spun, confused. The Nevermore she just brought to the ground was dead, she was certain of it. However, that wasn't the reason why there was screeching. Fen looked up, and there was a swarm of Nevermore flying in the air towards her. Fen was comfortable taking on a large Nevermore by herself, or at least a clump of smaller Nevermores. However, she could see at least three Giants in the swarm, and that was something she was not going to deal with on her own. She started backing up, keeping an eye on their movements whilst trying to find a thicker tree patch rather than the open area she was currently in, but before she could make a move towards one, two of the Giant Nevermores flapped their wings, both sending barrages of feathers at Fen. She started backflipping away, trying to dodge the hail, but caught herself mid flip as a feather shot into the ground right where she would have landed. However, as a result, Fen ended up on her back on the ground as a feather flew straight for her head. Quickly rolling to the left to dodge it, Fen had little breathing time as another feather plummeted at where she'd end up, causing her to roll back to the right. Unfortunately, that left Fen boxed in as a third feather came flying down at her, and although she raised her fans to try and cut it up before it hit her, it never got that far. Someone had jumped in front of her, and attached to his arm was a device that shot out a rectangular holographic shield. The feathers shattered upon hitting it, but by the fact his arm was slowly sinking, the impact of each feather was affecting him.  
"You know, you are allowed to move!" the boy yelled, which woke Fen up. Pushing herself back up to her feet, she started running for tree cover, the boy running with her and covering both of them with his shield.  
"Thanks for the save, by the way," Fen said, as they got into the thicker forest and out of the immediate aim of the Nevermore swarm. "Fen, by the way," she added as an afterthought.  
"Tristov, but if we stop here the Nevermores will just clear through the forest to find us. We need to keep moving," Tristov replied, no longer with a shield coming out of his arm. Fen picked up on the Russian sounding hint to his accent, but didn't make a comment on it. "Come on, let's go," Tristov said, at which point Fen picked up the pace, running alongside him._

"And that's how we ended up here," Fen explained. "What about you? Come across much yet?"  
"A handful of Grimm here and there, as well as some of the initiates attacking us," Vertiya said, her tone dark when she mentioned the initiates, at which Fen raised an eyebrow. She obviously hadn't run into one.  
"Yeah, I bumped into a pair like that as well, but stopped their attacks pretty easily," Tristov explained, but he hardly sounded bothered by it. "Fen, we need to make a move, we're already behind."  
"Good point," Fen said to Tristov, before turning back to Vertiya. "I'll speak to you later when we're both through all of this. See you later," she said, before jogging over to Tristov, leaving the area with him.  
"I suppose you having friends isn't always a bad thing," Yimesz said, grinning. "I mean, I know hopefully enough people to stop us getting attacked, but you knowing one person is an added bonus."  
"One day I am going to make pink cards permanently stick, and I will put one over your mouth," Vertiya said, shaking her head as she limped forwards. "We need to get to the end as well. We're not exactly making brilliant time ourselves," she added.

It was only a few more minutes until Vertiya and Yimesz came across another clearing, but this clearing was a lot larger than the ones they had come across before, and this one also had a fountain in it. Vertiya quickly counted how many people there were stood there, and realised there were 38. "Perfect," she said to herself with a grin, as she and Yimesz started making their way to the fountain, which was still a good hundred metres away. That being said, about fifty metres to their right, another pair came crashing out of the clearing, and not only that, it was the pair that attacked them earlier. They made brief eye contact, realising the situation, and the other pair started sprinting, causing Vertiya and Yimesz to do so as well. However, Vertiya, weakened by that earlier attack, knew she couldn't outsprint the pair of them, so instead realised she'd have to do something else. Pulling out a blue card, she stopped, took careful aim, and threw. The card soared through the air, before catching the male in the right foot, causing him to fall to ground with his foot frozen to it. The girl got to the fountain just before Yimesz did, but upon realising she didn't have her partner, ran back to go get him. By the time the guy had managed to get his foot unfrozen, Vertiya had got to the fountain as well, and when the other pair got to the fountain, they were livid.  
"But General Ironwood, she attacked us? Surely they should get disqualified or something for that," the girl argued with Ironwood, glaring at Vertiya.  
"Well, I never said that attacking other initiates was against the rules," Ironwood pointed out, his arms folded and expression unwavering. "Besides, I had plenty of cameras dotted around the forest, and I saw that you actually attacked them from behind, which as far as I'm concerned, is a lot worse than them giving revenge. Your arguments, therefore, are invalid, and you have not passed to the next stage," he concluded.  
Vertiya grinned to herself upon hearing these words. Her back was still in discomfort after all, so to know that she had just knocked out the people who had attacked her was a victory in her eyes. "Shame isn't it, I guess karma does come back around," she said to the duo, walking away from their shouted insults. She wasn't bothered about them. She still had two rounds left before she'd even get into Atlas Academy, and she needed to get those out of the way now.


	7. Chapter 7

If Vertiya or anyone else had thought that they'd get a break from after the next stage, they were sorely mistaken. It couldn't have been later than seven in the morning the day after the forest stage when a loud alarm burst into everyone's eardrums, unwanted as a Grimm attack or knitted underwear, which got everyone awake – even Yimesz, who had somehow ended up in some random girl's sleeping bag and looked like he got not nearly enough sleep was woken up by it. Seeing him and shaking her head, Vertiya slipped out of her own sleeping bag in the main hall, getting ready for the day in rapid time.

"Now I know that you only completed the last stage yesterday, and some of you are still exhausted by it. However, term starts in three days, and I decided that considering this stage is less physically demanding than any of the others, I would do this stage today, and give you all a rest or time to train together before the team fights in two days. After all, the conclusion of today will determine what groups of four you will be in, so this stage is rather important," Ironwood said before them, on the podium where the first announcement was when the initiates first joined. "This stage is based primarily on Aura, which I'm sure you're all familiar with by this point, you'll have learned about it in your respective combat schools. As a huntsman or huntress, you'll all have to be able to both sense aura in an ally or enemy – or sometimes more importantly, lack of aura – as well as apply it for both defensive and offensive Auras. Note that I'm not talking about semblances here, as although semblances are technically speaking the projection of aura, I and the rest of the staff here at Atlas want to be able to see hunstmen and huntresses use their aura in all the ways they can, and therefore you need to prove to us that you already have some knowledge of how to use it."  
Vertiya grinned when she heard this. As someone who never was much of a weapon user, Vertiya often had to rely on her aura in order to hold her own, at least until she had the cards, and was experienced in using it. Plus, thanks to the Hylae buff, her aura was particularly potent. Yimesz was a little concerned about this trial – he won fights through fighting more than careful aura usage – but Vertiya was fairly certain she could carry him through this one.  
"This trial will start when the room goes pitch black. You will have to sense your way to another pair using your aura and theirs, and you'll know who to look for because they will flow the brightest in the darkness, because they and you will be the most compatible. Once you're in your groups, or after a few minutes, there will be an 'attack of darkness' as my teachers call it – an attack more on the mind than on the body, and you as a group will have to combine your aura together to fight it off. If we have either more or less than eight groups of four by the end, then we will just go into the final round with however many progress through, but historically speaking, that has only happened two times in the entire time the trial has been implemented. If there are no questions, I guess we can begin," Ironwood said, as the lights went out, and Vertiya, Yimesz and the rest of the initiates were consumed by darkness.

Vertiya, however, was unfazed. Immediately using the lack of sight as a chance to not have one of her senses send unneeded information to her brain, she took the opportunity to concentrate, and soon enough found the faint, green glow of Yimesz fairly close to her, and moved over to him. "Yimesz, it's me," she whispered up to him.  
"Thank the lords, I was gonna be screwed in this trial otherwise," Yimesz responded, a clear tone of relief present. "Do you have any idea how you're gonna find anyone else though?"  
"Working on it," Vertiya replied, shutting her eyes. She always knew how to sense out Yimesz because she was familiar with the aura he produced, no matter how faint it was. But in a room with thirty-eight other individual auras, none of which she recognised, she didn't know how to pinpoint someone. In a perfect world, she'd look out for Fen, but Vertiya had no idea what colour her aura was, as she'd never seen Fen use anything related to it, and so had no idea what to search for.  
"Hate to break it to you, but we're kinda running out of time here," Yimesz whispered to Vertiya, quite clearly pointing out the obvious.  
"You know, that really isn't helping," Vertiya muttered back in an agitated tone, before pinpointing two auras that felt rather strong, and were calling out to her. "Thankfully, I've found a pair, so quit your yammering and come with me," she added, dragging Yimesz to a pair on the other side of the hall. The pair consisted of a male and female figure with the male being far taller than the female; the male having a warm, chocolatey brown glow to him, whereas the girl had a light, rosy pink to her aura.  
"Felt you two coming a mile off," the male voice said to them, his voice rough and weathered, and not one that either Vertiya or Yimesz recognised. "I guess that means that, what was it Ironwood said, we're compatible or something?" he added, scratching his head. His facial features, and clothing were indistinguishable, all that could be made out was a male figure from the brown human-shaped glow, so Vertiya had no luck working out who it was.  
"Well, here's hoping. I don't intend to get knocked out by the trials," Vertiya said, tying her hair up into a messy ponytail. There was an eerie silence that blocked out everything other than the three people around her, and Vertiya wanted to properly concentrate in case something happened out of nowhere.  
"Same. My parents would not be happy if I didn't even make it into the school," the girl of the pair said, still a voice that Vertiya did not recognise, but the wording of what she said broke Vertiya's concentration momentarily as her train of thought started rolling. There was one initiate she could think of instantly who had well known parents, was female, and was rather short. Her train of thought also led her to the forest of the last stage, where she did spot a young girl, who had a pink-ish look to her, get carried off by a big guy who had fairly brown clothing, and it was at this point that Vertiya's mind clicked, and she realised who she was with.  
"Ruzovi?" Vertiya asked, but she didn't get a response. Instead, what she got was what sounded almost like a high-pitched screech, like nails running down a blackboard. Cringing in discomfort, Vertiya covered her ears with her hands, but it did nothing, and she quickly realised this was the 'mental attack' that they were meant to be able to fight off. Dropping her hands, and screwing her eyes shut in concentration, Vertiya's glow started getting brighter, and as she focused her aura onto the attack, it dissipated almost instantly. "What was that?" Vertiya asked, looking to the other three in her group.  
"What was what?" Yimesz asked, scratching his head. Vertiya couldn't make out facial expressions, but she soon realised that both who she assumed were Ruzovi and the pirate-like guy were hadn't made any obvious body movements of discomfort, so she must have been the only one who had been affected.  
"That… Well, the details of what happened aren't massively important, but be on your guard, this stage has started," Vertiya explained, her voice a little drained. She had a tiny bit of a headache building up on her, but she couldn't afford to be bothered by it. That was only the start.

 _"So you're the strongest one, then?"  
_ Vertiya's expression went from concentrated to confused off that. She quite clearly heard the voice, but she couldn't direct it at all. It was almost as though it came from directly within her own mind. 'What is this?' she thought, which proved her earlier suspicion, because following off that she could hear cold laughter following up from it.  
 _"Me? I'm little more than a voice in your head,"_ the voice replied. Vertiya could make out that the voice was female, but it was deep in pitch, and somewhat distorted. _"But if you really must know, I am the voice that speaks to the Grimm, and controls their movements. I am the one who creates fear, and the one who makes worlds out of darkness."  
_ Vertiya almost laughed. 'Pull the other one,' she thought, a smirk on her lips. In order to be something like that, this entity would have to be ridiculously powerful, and wouldn't be something that General Ironwood would use in something to test initiates.  
 _"You know I'm in your head, right? Just because you don't deliberately think things, doesn't mean that what's in your thoughts is hidden from me,"_ the voice replied, which froze Vertiya. She hadn't thought of that. _"And although, you're right, perhaps James didn't want something as omnipotent as me to test his new students, I am based off what I told you. And if I'm not as powerful as you assume, would I be able to do this to your brother at the flick of a switch?"_ she asked, and suddenly Vertiya could hear a cry of pain come from Yimesz, and could see him grab his head and clench hard. Vertiya, reacting quickly, grabbed hold of Yimesz by the shoulder and expelled some of her own aura into him, and fairly soon his grip on his head started to loosen up. After all, Yimesz wasn't an aura user to the extent that Vertiya was, and she knew full well he'd need help here.  
"Is that what you were talking about?" Yimesz asked, his tone clearly displaying his discomfort at the mental attack that just happened to him. He sounded a little weak, but Vertiya knew he'd perk up again soon enough.  
"More or less, yeah," Vertiya explained to him, but she didn't have much time to follow up with her explanation, because soon enough, that voice was back in her head.  
 _"Cute, how you used your own abilities to save your brother,"_ the voice said, her voice smooth and dripping with sarcasm. _"But what about the other two, Plutonine and Ruzovi? You don't have such a strong relationship with them yet, do you? Can you save them as well?"_  
Vertiya turned to the brown and pink glows of Plutonine and Ruzovi respectively, and just like Yimesz, they were making visible signs of pain. Vertiya lunged out for them, but rather than have to expel her aura to help them, the three of them almost shared their auras between them, and the attack was dissolved soon enough.  
"Smart move there," Plutonine said to Vertiya, rubbing his head. Vertiya smiled in the darkness at Plutonine's compliment, as he went on to ask, "I take it you two are the Hylae twins?"  
"Yeah, that's us," Yimesz replied, Vertiya nodding alongside his response. To give him some credit, Plutonine seemed a lot more likeable than the drunk he seemed to be on the first day, and both Vertiya and Yimesz could see a good friendship possibility for differing reasons.  
 _"Look, I've made you friends already! And you people think the Grimm are all bad,"_ the voice said in Vertiya's head, false encouragement obvious. _"But, I've let you help out your new team without many problems coming to yourself. I wonder how you'll cope if I go for all of you at the same time?"  
_ The same screeching came back to Vertiya, however this time she was ready for it and seemed almost unaffected. The other three all creased again, but Vertiya took Ruzovi's and Yimesz's hands in hers, before trying to speak over the screeching. "Trust me on this. Link up, if we can combine all of our auras together, we can get rid of this."  
The other three nodded, forming a ring and connecting with their hands, and Vertiya focused her energy into her aura. The other three did the same – Yimesz attempted to, at least – and between them, they stopped glowing the colours of their own individual auras, and instead all started glowing white. _"Hmph. Very good. Don't think this is the last of me,"_ the voice said, before it left, and with it so did the attack. Almost immediately after, the lights came on, and Vertiya could see the faces of Ruzovi, Plutonine and Yimesz all looking at each other, with faint smiles showing. Vertiya let go of the others, looking around at the rest of the hall to see how they had all done, and it had seemed that most of the others had had similar ideas. Most of the others. A few people were on the floor, clutching their heads in agony or otherwise shaking, and Vertiya realised quickly enough that they had not quite the aptitude for aura to fend off that attack.  
Soon after, however, Ironwood came back into the room, looking around before speaking out and drawing attention to himself. "Well, to those of you who are still standing, congratulations, you have passed this stage and I will see you again in a couple of days for the final stage. Those who are not… Unfortunately, you are no longer in the running, and good luck with your future endeavours," he explained, leaving the room again.  
Vertiya turned from him back to the three standing around her. Sure, they may not have been the sort of team she had anticipated having – her brother, a girl who was far younger than everyone else in there, and a drunk who seemed to have an affinity for pirates. But, she was more than ready to work with it.


	8. Chapter 8

The couple of days that everyone had gotten between the last stage and the final stage had been used up in various ways by the 32 initiates that were still remaining. Some had taken the time to recover from the mental strain that they had to go through during the aura stage. Some were taking the time purely to relax. Vertiya, however, knew full well that some teams would be unprepared if her group already knew each other's strengths and weaknesses, how to fight together, and if they gelled well together as a team, and as such she had her team training straight from the day after the aura trial. She more or less had everyone worked out now – Yimesz used a combination of speed and explosive force and was best for drawing attacks, plus he could use his semblance to recover; Plutonine was a little slower than the rest of the team, but could take a hit and was by far the strongest in the team and was the best for setting up group attacks; Ruzovi was easily the most skilful fighter in terms of actual combat ability and was probably the best at picking off anyone who would be otherwise difficult to handle – and now, the evening before the final stage, Vertiya had decided to call an end to the training scheme she had devised, much to the thanks of the other three. They were all damp with sweat by this point, but Vertiya had been careful to not overdo it, and none of them were exhausted to the point where they wouldn't be able to battle tomorrow.

"You know, I had hoped that becoming a huntsman would result in me not having to do as much exercise than being at sea all the time," Plutonine, or Pluto as he preferred, said as he collapsed onto a chair. They still didn't have their own dorm yet as Atlas Academy only held enough dorms for four teams of each year, so they were currently resting in one of the main lounges.  
"Nah, this probably isn't representative of complete huntsman training," Yimesz replied, leaning back on the sofa he was sat on, arms up. "This is just V. I would know, she was like this at home."  
Vertiya glared at Yimesz, before turning back to Pluto, pushing some damp stray strands of hair out of her eyes. "I know I've been pretty intense on you all, but I wanted to make sure that we'd be at least partially ready for tomorrow. I didn't want to go into a team fight where none of us knew how to fight with each other."  
"You bring a good point," Pluto said, taking a swig from his hip flask. Vertiya wasn't entirely sure what it was he was drinking – as someone who didn't drink herself, Vertiya didn't know what smell of alcohol was what – or more importantly, how he got so much drink or where it went when the flask changed into a hammer, but she didn't bother asking. "Does anyone know anything about tomorrow then?"  
"Other than what General Ironwood said on the first day, no," Vertiya admitted. The only people who ever knew about the Atlas trials were those who had done them themselves, and as Vertiya and Yimesz were the only members of the Hylae family currently alive who had been to Atlas Academy. "Yimesz and I are the first to be at Atlas in our family in a long time, and there was no one I could ask about the trials."  
"I know a little bit," Ruzovi said with a quiet voice, speaking up for the first time. Vertiya had picked up on the fact she was reasonably shy, and with good reason seeing how she was so much younger than everyone else purely in the team, let alone the school. However, when she perked up, she managed to get everyone's attention, surprisingly enough. "It's kinda similar to the Vytal festival fights, if you've ever watched those before. The arena will become, like, representative of a random environment, only one though unlike the tournament, and it just becomes a case of being the first team to get the other team's aura to 15% or less. At least, that's what it was when my dad went through Atlas."  
"So it isn't just a flat fight," Vertiya said out loud, more a statement than a question. Vertiya was fine going into fights in different environments, but normally only if she knew what said environment was and how to act around it. "Do you remember what landscape types there are?"  
"I know a few, but there's probably more than what I can remember," Ruzovi admitted, thinking back. "Dad said his one was in some form of rocky, mountainous type terrain, but I'm pretty sure there's a beach one, an abandoned town one, a swamp one, something jungle related, and that's all I can think of. I'm not sure if you'd be able to prepare for all of them."  
"Hey, you can't plan everything," Yimesz said to Vertiya, yawning a little as he stood up from the sofa. "I am going to get some sleep. And you, Miss Hylae, I expect to be getting some shut eye soon. You won't be any use tomorrow if you can't keep your eyes open."  
"To be honest, I might call it a night there as well," Pluto added, as he pushed himself up from the chair, draining the last of his flask. Vertiya was still a little against Pluto's drinking, but it worked for him, so she couldn't really complain. And she still wasn't sure whether what he was drinking was just alcohol or something else that gave him something of a buff. "You two girls coming yet, or you staying up for a bit longer?"  
"I'm not tired just yet, I'll probably be going to bed in a short while though," Ruzovi replied, before turning to Vertiya to see what she was doing. Vertiya still had her eyebrow raised at Yimesz's comment, but she didn't quite look that exhausted yet.  
"Likewise, I'll go to sleep a bit later," Vertiya said, looking over to Ruzovi with a small smile before turning back to the two boys. "Have a good night, we've got a heavy day tomorrow."

The two boys both left together, and once they had, Vertiya turned back to Ruzovi. She was curious about a few things after all – how she managed to get here aged only 14, what it was like growing up in the Saffyer empire and such – but Ruzovi beat her to the conversation. "I have to ask, when you were fighting that Nevermore on the first day, what was that card thing you did? Surely you can't have two semblances," she asked, causing Vertiya to smile.  
"It's been something amongst my family for generations," Vertiya started to explain. "For some reason, all the females in my family have access to some power that is stronger than a semblance. There's a running joke that the woman with the most power in our family at any given time is called the Maiden because of The Story of the Seasons, but that's just a fairy tale, so I never really took it too much to heart," she continued. "It does take an awful lot out of me, though, which is why I don't often use it too much."  
"Still, it's a good last resort," Ruzovi replied. She seemed less shy when just around Vertiya, which Vertiya did pick up on. Probably because they were both girls, after all, and Ruzovi was still young so would have been uncomfortable around a lot of people. "How come you chose Atlas, then? I would have thought somewhere like Haven would have been better for you, considering your weapon."  
"I did consider Haven quite thoroughly, to be honest. Plus, my aunt went there as well, so I'd know a bit more about it," Vertiya responded. "However, I prefer to keep things ordered and methodical, and I felt like Atlas would have done a better job at that, plus I live here in Atlas anyway and I didn't want to travel too far. How about you, though? I've never heard of anyone getting into an academy so young, and although I saw your fight against the Taijitu which was really impressive, was there anything else to it?"  
"There was a little bit more to it, yeah," Ruzovi admitted. "See, my parents have been supporting the Atlesian military for years, and General Ironwood and my parents are on good terms. But, there have been a lot of arguments in my dad's office for the last couple of years, which makes me think that our business isn't doing quite as well as normal, and General Ironwood was over a few months ago. I didn't really hear what was said, but Ironwood came out, spoke to me, and told me I had a place at Atlas," she went on to explain. "He already knew I could fight because apparently he'd seen how I did back at my primary combat school, but I don't know exactly what was said between my dad and General Ironwood because neither of them would say, but I was excited about the idea of going to Atlas Academy, so I took it."  
Vertiya knew better than to pry into that. By the sounds of it, Ruzovi's family was going through some hardships with their business, and Vertiya didn't want to start off by trying to find out about something that would have been negative. Besides, she'd made it this far after all, so she clearly had talent enough to succeed, and out of her team, she'd definitely seemed to be trying the most. Yimesz was, well, Yimesz, and Pluto, although he was great with the team, had questionable ways of going about things. Plus, he was more or less always drunk, which Vertiya still disapproved of. "Well, I'm sure we can give your parents the good news that we've made it in to the academy after we win tomorrow," Vertiya told Ruzovi with a rare smile. "That being said, I think I'm going to go get some sleep myself. You coming as well or are you staying up?"  
"No, I think I'm going to get some sleep as well," Ruzovi replied, getting up off the chair. "I… enjoyed talking to you though. It's nice to not feel like I'm being talked down to, for a change."  
"I'm not gonna lie to you, I make my opinion on someone when I know them by their personality. And let's put it this way, compared to the other two in our team, you're definitely the most mature," Vertiya told her, getting a small giggle out of Ruzovi in the process. However she too stood up at this point, and walked with Ruzovi towards the sleeping area.

However, they were stopped by the sound of raucous, and to Vertiya familiar, laughter. "Who on earth could be making that much noise?" Ruzovi asked, a little confused. "I mean, aren't most people asleep?"  
"I would have thought so too, but I can definitely recognise one of the voices," Vertiya said with a sigh, turning round a corner with Ruzovi to find Pluto and Yimesz. Yimesz was on all fours, banging the floor with laughter, and although Pluto was still standing, it was only just. "I thought you two were going to sleep?" Vertiya asked, in a loud enough voice that the two of them stopped their laughing and turned to her.  
"We were, but Pluto suggested getting to know each other a bit better over a drink," Yimesz explained with a slurred tone, as he tentatively got to his feet. "Except we may have had a few more than one."  
"Aye, your brother cannot handle his brew, it would seem," Pluto told Vertiya with a deep laugh, his voice sounding rougher than it was when he was talking earlier. "That being said, though, he is definitely the character."  
Vertiya shook her head, covering her eyes with the palm of her hand. "Boys," she sighed, walking past them. "If you two have a hangover tomorrow I am going to kill you."


	9. Chapter 9

Vertiya was up at the crack of dawn the next day. Granted, she was not one who tended to sleep much, but even still she had noticeably less rest than usual, and for the first time in a long time, she was nervous. Even when battling the Nevermore she kept a cool head, and in both the forest and the aura trial she was more than capable of staying calm under pressure. But fighting a whole team with a group of people she had only really 'befriended' a couple of days ago? Vertiya was troubled by it.

"You look troubled."  
Vertiya had been unfocused, looking out of one of the many windows in the room, and as such had not realised Pluto was there next to her with his arms folded. There was no trace of alcohol in his breath, oddly enough, and he was as far as Vertiya could see completely sober.  
"Let's just say I'm a little nervous about the upcoming stage, and I don't usually get nervous," Vertiya explained, looking up to Pluto. He was a tall kid, and the beard really aged him well, making him look quite a bit older than just eighteen. "That being said, you look oddly… sober, considering how you were yesterday."  
"Well, other than the fact living on the sea did give me quite the tolerance, my brew isn't exactly what most people consider as proper alcohol," Pluto explained to her. "It actually consists mostly of stored up aura, so in a pinch, I tend to get through the whole thing. When it's in weapon form, though, my hammer can steal aura from other people in a fight, or similar to your brother's semblance convert life essence from Grimm into aura. Makes for a potent beverage."  
Converting aura into a drink was definitely another thing Vertiya had never heard of, nor would have thought of, but it definitely worked for him so she wasn't going to question against it. "Well, as long as Yimesz wakes up without a hangover I can't complain," she said, shrugging. "I'm curious, though, why go from the sea to here?"  
"Well, I've always been a lover of adventure, and I was fairly certain that becoming a huntsman would lead to that. Plus, if I actually knew how to defeat the Grimm of the sea, they wouldn't be so much of a problem," Pluto explained, shrugging. "Made the decision a little late, but I guess General Ironwwod must have seen some potential because, after all, I'm here."  
Pluto definitely had a backstory that Vertiya could only have partially anticipated. Sure, she got the sea vibes, the adventure, and so on, but the idea for the weapon, reasoning behind coming to a huntsman academy, and just general maturity was far past what she expected. She was about to ask more, but a familiar voice stopped her from doing so.  
"I am gonna need some more of that drink some time Pluto. I'm not even hanging! This is incredible!"

It had gotten to around midday before the inevitable came around, and Vertiya, Yimesz, Pluto and Ruzovi ended up alongside the other 28 left. Vertiya had neither seen nor spoken to Fen since the race trial a few days ago and was interested to see what other team mates she'd acquired alongside the Russian who, as far as Vertiya knew, used a shield of some form, but before she could scour the whole crowd, the familiar voice of General Ironwood echoed through the room as per usual, and she with the others resigned to watching him.  
"Congratulations to all of you who have made it to this stage. Out of the hundreds who applied for Atlas Academy this year, you are the final thirty-two, and that is commendable. However, as I said, we only have space for sixteen, and as I am sure you are all aware, this is the final stage. As previously mentioned, eight teams will go into this stage, and only four will come out," Ironwood started to elaborate. "I do hope that the last two days between the aura stage and this one have been used by you all to get comfortable with your new team mates, learn battle styles, and coordinate potential strategies."  
There were varying reactions to this statement. Vertiya was quite comfortable – she'd been doing that exact thing after all – and there were a few people who were equally satisfied at hearing this. Other teams, however, were muttering at this point, and it was pretty clear they had not put quite as much effort into preparing.  
"One final point: because we are not hosting a Vytal Festival for quite some time, we do only have one battle environment fully set up at the current moment in time, and therefore you will all be using it. As such, because we don't want any teams to get unfair advantages, you will not be able to spectate the fights, nor will you be able to speak to anyone who has completed the fight until your team have finished theirs. The teams that will be competing against each other will be randomised, because as far as I and all the staff at Atlas are concerned, you are all at the same level, and all capable of graduating from this academy."  
After saying this, General Ironwood pressed something on his scroll, and pictures of each of the eight teams started scrolling, both coming to a halt at the same time.  
"Well, Venim Achilles, Rooch Jestyr, Titania Stone and Crystal Xerdius, you will be battling against Karmin Farkas, Tristov Icus, Emeric Marion and Fen Yīnghuā. If the eight of you could follow me, we shall begin shortly," Ironwood called out.  
Vertiya of course knew Fen, and had been introduced to Tristov back in the forest, but Karmin and Emeric she did not recall, nor did she recognise any of the names of the team she was against. However, she did get a quick view of the teams, and she realised that one of Fen's team was the rather savage character from the first stage who appeared to finish off the Grimm he was paired with by ripping it apart. How Fen was going to work with that, Vertiya did not know, but either way she suddenly felt a little better about the team she was with. At least they all listened.

Vertiya couldn't help but feel like it was starting to become a trend. She was the last person to be called up to take on a Grimm. She was half of the last pair to make it to the centre of the forest. And now, sat with Yimesz, Pluto, and Ruzovi, she was one of the last two teams to take on the final stage. The wait was uncomfortable, and held out in silence with the exception of Pluto's drinking, but the tension was eventually broken when General Ironwood came back into the room for the fourth and final time.  
"I am fairly certain you all know who you are facing, but for the logs of the school, I do have to run it through the system," Ironwood explained, pressing his scroll again, with the teams that were scrolling merely staying the exact same. "Plutonine Hawkrest, Vertiya Hylae, Yimesz Hylae, and Ruzovi Saffyer, you will be facing off against Emba Byrrhon, Pechus Irus, Hylliang Kestenyav, and Peter Wheatey. Please come with me."  
Vertiya and the rest of her team got up, as did the other team, both of them following General Ironwood through a door to a rather astonishing sight. They were met with an impressive scene: laid out in front of them was something resembling a glacier, with various ice spikes coming out of the ground which seemed to be made of pure ice, a structure that resembled a small cave, and even a body of water on one side. Pluto grinned upon seeing the water, and Vertiya knew why now – he'd been raised on the sea, and aquatic combat was bound to be his strength. The four of them went round to one side of the landscape, whereas the other team went round to the other, before getting into a starting position. Vertiya quickly made out what weapons each of them used: Emba wielded a large disc resembling a Frisbee that was twice the size of her, but with nothing in the middle; Pechus had in his hands a whip; Hylliang sported a pair of nunchucks which looked like they morphed into pistols; and Peter had in both hands a giant broadsword, with attachments that made it look like it changed to form a rifle. Vertiya started flipping a pair of cards in her hand, looking up to see images of everyone with an aura level underneath, before a bell rung through the arena.

Almost immediately when the battle started, Emba threw her disc out, causing it to bounce off each of the ice spikes in a pinball-like fashion. Pluto dived out of the way and Ruzovi merely bent underneath it, but Vertiya, who was not expecting such a quick start, was slow on getting a card to counter the circular blade that was rapidly approaching her, but her lack of reaction was made up for by Yimesz meating the blade with his fist, redirecting the blade back at the other team. Emba easily caught the disc again, but in the brief chaos, the other team had vanished into the ice.  
"You, sis, need to wake up a little," Yimesz told Vertiya, but the grin on his face showed that he wasn't saying it in a truly serious manner. "I told you not sleeping all the time would catch up on you."  
"Oh for the love of-" Vertiya started to retort, before ducking behind an ice spike when a barrage of rifle shots came flying her way. "Right, Pluto, take the water. Yimesz, Ruzovi, stay on the ice, but watch out for a surprise attack. I'm gonna go… act support," Vertiya said, with a sigh on the last bit, as she activated her semblance and turned invisible. Sure, Vertiya did not tend to use a particularly aggressive style of combat, and her favourite card was pink, but she preferred being at the very least hands on. However, none of the other three had the support capabilities that she had, so she knew in some scenarios she'd have to be the one to take the initiative.  
Upon hearing a deafening crack, Vertiya moved. Pluto, who of course didn't have an actual boat, and simply used his hammer to crack off a large part of the ice, and had taken that to the water instead. Once he was on the water, he swapped his weapon to cannon form, before firing a barrage of cannonballs onto the battlefield, drawing a lot of attention and giving Vertiya cover and an audible distraction to allow her to get into where the enemies were. Sure, Vertiya knew how to be quiet, but with a cannon firing in the background, she didn't have to take quite as much caution and could therefore move with more haste, and sure enough she found the first of the opposing team, Hylliang, hidden behind one of the ice structures. Dropping behind another spike as her semblance wore off, Vertiya threw a pink card up in the air above Hylliang, before throwing a red card at it, creating a flare in the sky that revealed his location. Hylliang spotted the flare, but he was a little too slow on spotting it – the ice spike he was hiding behind had been smashed completely, and Yimesz had landed a hard punch on him. Hylliang was back up on his feet quickly, though, and the two ended up engaging in a rather fast paced brawl.  
Vertiya was about to pop her semblance again, but before she could the ice spike that she'd been using for cover got yanked away from her, and as she turned she realised Pechus had taken a hold of it with his whip and pulled it out of the ice, leaving her both open and vulnerable.  
"Well, if it isn't Ironwood's favourite student," a female voice said, which Vertiya soon noticed to be Emba, who had appeared next to Pechus. "Wonder what will happen when we knock you out of the running. Might even get a bonus of some form."  
"I'd be more concerned about you knocking me out if I actually remembered who you were," Vertiya said with a bit of snark, chucking a yellow card at Emba. Emba rolled out of the way of it, but she had quite the grin on her lips when she returned to a standing posture.  
"Ooh, feisty. I like it," Emba responded, resting her free hand on her hip. "Sass isn't going to get you out of this situation though," she added, and in one slick move Pechus had whipped towards Vertiya's legs, taking her feet out from under her. "See, you need fighting skill to be able to get through something like this. Which looks something like this," she continued, doing a stylish flip in the air before bringing the blade down towards Vertiya.

Vertiya had just about stopped the attack with a quickly placed brown card, but that wasn't what had gotten Emba off her. Ruzovi, who had managed to get over to Vertiya, had caught Emba in the side with her bo as Emba was bringing her disc blade down on Vertiya, knocking her off to the side.  
"You need a team to get through an academy, not just individual skill," Ruzovi said, aiming her staff at Pechus who was repositioning, and Emba who was getting back to her feet. Vertiya pushed herself back up to her feet as well, getting a few more cards in between her fingers.  
"A team, hmm?" Emba mocked, as she started spinning her disc in her hands. "You're not a team yet. You're just four individuals who happen to be fighting another four. And if you don't believe me, look at how the fighting has spanned out."  
Emba had a point. Peter had jumped onto Pluto's block of ice in the water to stop the cannon barrage, and was battling him; Yimesz and Hylliang were still going at it on the other side of the landscape, and that left the four of them standing there. "Well, that tends to happen when you've only been together for two days. But we're still enough of a team to kick your asses," Vertiya retorted.  
"Pah," Emba scoffed, Pechus to her side starting to circle his whip in the air. "I'd like to see you try."


	10. Chapter 10

Pechus was the first to make a move, using the momentum he'd been building up with his whip to snap it with lightning speed at Ruzovi, who just about managed to dodge it by bending to the side and hence leaving a resounding crack noise as the whip hit nothing. Vertiya tried to counter with a yellow card, but Emba chucked her disc at it, causing the card to get stopped in mid-air and affect nothing. Before she even caught the disc again, Emba had started running towards Ruzovi and Vertiya and had launched herself with a jumping, two footed kick, but Ruzovi caught her feet with her bo and sent her backwards, Emba doing a backflip in order to land comfortably. Vertiya, grimacing, chucked another yellow card, but threw a red card at it as well, before covering her eyes. As the two cards met, they created a flashbang effect, blinding and deafening Emba and Pechus temporarily. Once they could see again, Ruzovi and Vertiya had vanished.  
"We need to think up something better than this, we won't win out a straight two versus two," Vertiya muttered, hidden behind an ice sculpture.  
"Well, what about trying some of those combos you came up with? If we can regroup with the others, we could bring those into play," Ruzovi suggested.  
"Good idea. We need to get these two off our tails first, though. Get your bow ready, they won't expect a charged arrow," Vertiya suggested, and with a nod from Ruzovi, she got a red card ready. Ruzovi curved her staff into a bow, and pulled out an arrow from her quiver, before pushing off the floor, launching herself gracefully into the air. Almost simultaneously, Vertiya carefully took aim, perfectly aiming the card so Ruzovi could shoot through it towards where Emba and Pechus were. The arrow landed between the pair of them, but as soon as it made contact with the floor it exploded, blasting both Emba and Pechus away from each other. Emba smashed through an ice spike and was temporarily dazed, but Pechus, after seeing Emba on the floor, looked back to Ruzovi and Vertiya who were both now no longer behind their cover, and his pale orange eyes went crimson red, accompanied by a sly grin curling his lips.  
Everything that was in Vertiya's mind disappeared, and instead she was left with nothing but an uncontrollable anger towards Pechus. Ruzovi was the same, and had leapt towards Pechus with her bow changed back to her staff, aiming a two-handed strike towards his head. Pechus, with a nimble move, caught the strike within the coils of his whip and controlled the momentum well enough to send Ruzovi flying backwards, her staff still caught within Pechus' weapon. Directly after this, xthough, Pechus had to roll to the side in order to avoid a barrage of cards that were thrown by Vertiya.  
Vertiya didn't stop there, though, and sure enough, similar to fighting against the Nevermore, Vertiya's eyes had started to go completely green. She didn't quite get completely off the ground, however, because in from the side came a large ball of fire that crashed into Vertiya, knocking her out of the way and causing her to slide across the ice. The ball of fire stopped spinning, and Vertiya, still injured on the ground, realised it was Emba who had just crashed straight into her.  
"I hope you hadn't forgotten that everyone here has a semblance as well," Emba taunted, chucking her disc again at Vertiya who narrowly managed to roll out of its path. "See, unlike you, I like to only have to reveal things when I need to and therefore get the surprise factor out of them. You don't have any tricks you can pull on me anymore that I don't already know, I've seen all of what you can do."  
"Oh, if you think you've already seen everything I can do you must either be painfully unobservant, or just downright unintelligent," Vertiya replied, slapping a pink card on her side and pushing herself back to her feet. "There's always a card I can play," she continued, before throwing a red and a brown card at them, which collided to envelop Pechus and Emba in smoke. With a viable enough distraction, Vertiya glanced towards Ruzovi, who nodded, and the pair of girls took off towards where the boys were.

Vertiya and Ruzovi made it to Yimesz first, who was still going at it against Hylliang, although both of them looked battered. Yimesz did have his semblance as a back-up, but Vertiya knew he was vulnerable whilst casting it, and he often didn't use it unless he knew he couldn't get jumped. However, once he saw the girls running over to him, he swapped his knuckledusters to revolvers, giving himself covering fire as he disengaged himself from the fight, grouping up with the two girls.  
"DO YOU THINK YOU CAN BEAT ME IN THE SEA?"  
The three of them stopped upon hearing this bellow, and turned to the water, to see Pluto and Peter still battling it out on the ice, but by the looks of it, Pluto had actually sobered up. One of the things that Vertiya noted over the last two days is that Pluto tended to fight in a similar manner to the fighting style 'drunken fist' as she had thought first time she saw him, where he managed to, as Vertiya put it, 'deliberately accident' his way to a victory. However, she had never seen him fight sober, and seeing it now, it looked terrifying.  
It sounded as though depth charges were going off under the water, and water started spouting upwards in time with the muffled booms with hard bursts, causing the ice block Pluto and Peter were stood on to start tossing violently. Pluto was steady as a rock amidst the chaos, but Peter, who did not quite have the sort of experience Pluto did in this matter, and it was only a matter of time before he started to lose his footing. Pluto, seeing this, started spinning his hammer around him, before with a full spin he struck the hammer into Peter with such force that he got knocked out of the arena altogether. Looking up to the screens, Vertiya could see Peter's aura drop down to below fifteen, and if that happened, they were eliminated from the battle for safety reasons. With his hammer changing back to a flask, Pluto took a long swig before spotting the rest of his team, and with a huge leap, he jumped straight from the block of ice to the main glacier where the other three were stood.  
"There I was, about to say we should probably group in order to start knocking them out, and you went and did it yourself," Vertiya said with a small smile. "That being said, we should probably try and stick together and press the advantage we now have, because they don't seem to have anything that's effective against a group."  
"Sounds good to me," Pluto replied, a lot calmer now than he had just appeared, but Vertiya reminded herself that Pluto had just had a drink and so was not quite as sober as he just was. "Time to pull out some of the combos we've been practising, hmm?"  
"That's what I was thinking," Vertiya responded, before getting a pink card in one hand and a green in the other, following up by slamming her hands together. The two cards combined to let out a pink-ish aura, that did a little patchwork to the injuries that the four of them were showing – not enough to completely heal them, but enough so that the wounds weren't as damaging. "Let's get rid of these guys."

The three remaining members of the other team – Emba, Pechus and Hylliang – had also grouped together by this point, but they weren't able to see where Vertiya, Yimesz, Pluto and Ruzovi had moved to. They also didn't see Vertiya throwing a red and a blue card through a brown card. What they did see, however, was Pluto coming out into the open and batting a giant boulder of ice towards them. Hylliang had nothing to counter it, and it was too big for Pechus to try and redirect it with his whip, so Emba attempted to fireball it, and although it shattered when Emba crashed into it, ice exploded out from the impact which caught both Pechus and Hylliang, and Emba was stunned herself from crashing into the boulder. Pluto swapped his hammer to cannon form and let off another barrage, carefully aiming them to force Emba, Pechus and Hylliang closer together to dodge the cannonball fire.  
Whilst this was going on, Yimesz had taken a hold of the end of Ruzovi's staff, and with careful use of her semblance and general skill, Ruzovi had manipulated her bo in such a way that it had flung Yimesz towards the trio left. Vertiya, who had prepped before, threw a red and a brown card towards the path of Yimesz's flight. Yimesz, seeing this, managed to punch through the two cards before bringing the same fist to the ground in the middle of Emba, Pechus and Hylliang, and the resulting explosion from the punch was so powerful it blasted all three of them out of the arena as well, knocking all of their auras out.  
"Well, that worked better than expected," Vertiya said, thinking out loud. Vertiya had only formulated that exact move as a concept, and for obvious reasons had not been able to practice it with the others. But that one combo was enough to knock out the other team, and hence get them into Atlas.

After the battle, the four of them had been taken through to another room where twelve of the other initiates were sat around waiting. Vertiya spotted Fen and her team were amongst them, and Fen, who perked up when seeing the final team come through the door, pushed herself off her seat and headed over to Vertiya.  
"Congratulations on making it through as well, although I don't exactly think that was unexpected," Fen said to her, with the tiniest hint of a smile on her lips. "I see you ended up with our drunk friend?"  
"Oh, Pluto? Yeah, although surprisingly he's a lot more tolerable than I had originally given him credit for," Vertiya admitted. Both him and Ruzovi were far easier to work with than she had previously anticipated. The hardest member to deal with, although not entirely to Vertiya's surprise, was Yimesz, but she'd been dealing with him since they were born so she was well accustomed to it. "What are your team like?"  
Fen made a rather prominent sound of exasperation at this, looking back at her team with a shake of her head before turning to Vertiya. "Tristov, the one you've met, he's reasonable enough. The other two… Emeric is just a pain, and Karmin is like what a Grimm disguised as a human would act like. I don't think I could have found more uncooperative people if I tried."  
Vertiya guessed that the one with the arm blades was Karmin, but she hadn't really seen anything of Emeric. Looking past Fen to see the rest of her team, Vertiya spotted the other boy alongside Karmin and Tristov, with what appeared to be a puppet resting on his shoulder. Vertiya could not think in any way of how you were meant to fight with a puppet, but before she could ask, General Ironwood appeared in the room, and the conversations between everyone drew to a swift close.  
"Congratulations to you all. Everyone standing here is now officially a student at Atlas Academy," Ironwood said to the sixteen kids dotted around the smaller room. "You have now each been assigned a dorm where you will be living whilst you are here, and you will be directed to them in due course. Before that happens, however, there is one last thing I have to do, which is finalise your teams and make them official," he explained, before moving over to the team sat down closest to him.  
"Derek Bisque, Lissandre Fandango, Techta Wayve and Aurolia Zenyff, you will from here on be known as Team TDAL, led by Techta Wayve," Ironwood said to them, one of the three girls in the group going wide eyed when Ironwood said the leader. Vertiya realised the girl probably didn't expect to end up the leader, and was starting to wonder about her own team. She imagined Pluto would probably end up leader – sure he had a love of his 'alcohol aura', but he was the oldest after all – but she wasn't too fussed about that. Both her aunt and father weren't the leaders of their respective teams either.  
"Melody Allegro, Nickel Bitra, Nave Plié, and Copper Tenebris, your team name is going to be Team CNMN, and you'll be led by Copper Tenebris," Ironwood said, having moved over to the next group and shaking the hand of the boy who was still standing, who Vertiya assumed to be Copper. Ironwood had moved over to Fen's team, and Vertiya, although not expecting to be named the leader, was still a little apprehensive. What if Yimesz ended up the leader of their team? That would be a disaster.  
"Karmin Farkas, Tristov Icus, Emeric Marion and Fen Yīnghuā, your group will be called Team FEKT, and your leader is going to be Fen Yīnghuā," Ironwood said to them, getting a small smile out of Vertiya. She knew full well that Fen was most likely going to end up leader of that team, judging by how she seemed to hold herself in comparison to the rest of them. However, Ironwood had moved over to her group now, and Vertiya didn't exactly have time to congratulate Fen.  
"And finally, Plutonine Hawkrest, Vertiya and Yimesz Hylae, and Ruzovi Saffyer, the team name you will don is Team VYPR, and you will be led by Vertiya Hylae."  
Vertiya was stunned. Even with Pluto clapping her on the back, saying, "Well, guess we all saw that one coming," she hadn't expected it. She'd only really given the training ideas as advice really, rather than something to try and prove her leadership.  
"Wait, me? But… why?" Vertiya said, shock evident in her tone and expression, which coaxed a warm smile out of General Ironwood.  
"You've shown the best leadership traits throughout these trials amongst your team, and don't think I didn't hear of you getting the rest of your team to prepare for the final test," Ironwood explained to her. "However, I can imagine you'll want to get some rest following your fight, so if you follow the update to your scrolls, you'll be directed to your new dorm."  
Vertiya nodded in thanks, turning to the others who all had a smile or grin on their faces, before rolling her eyes and pushing them in the direction her scroll was telling them to go. She could afford a bit of a break now. She'd made it into Atlas.

(Just a note: TDAL is pronounced Tidal, CNMN is Cinnamon, FEKT is Effect, and VYPR is Viper)


	11. Chapter 11

"…And that's how you can work out the weak spot on the majority of Grimm."The students amidst the class were doing various things. Vertiya, Ruzovi, Fen, Tristov, and a couple of others from the other two teams were carefully scribbling down notes based on what Professor Naranja was saying. Yimesz was busy not paying attention alongside the other two from Team FEKT: Emeric and Karmin, alongside the only guy from Team TDAL, Derek. Vertiya, though, couldn't help but notice that every now and again when she looked back to glare at Yimesz, that Emeric was giving her a few glances, with a slight smile. On top of that, Pluto was nowhere to be seen – until he burst in, drink in hand, a little more drunk than he usually was. This got a bunch of laughs from the guys in the back, and a collective sigh from both Vertiya and Fen."Sorry I'm late," Pluto said, his voice slurred a little from the alcohol as he collapsed on a seat in the back, resting his legs on the desk in front of him. Vertiya knew full well that Pluto said himself he had a high tolerance, so she knew he'd been drinking. A Naranja, however, was not as amused as Yimesz was. "A little bit more than late, Mr Hawkrest. The lesson has nearly concluded, and you have been absent for the entirety of it. On top of that, this has been a very important lesson on recognising weaknesses of Grimm, and I will have to set you extra work so you can catch up.""Weak spots?" Pluto said, with a quirked eyebrow. "Simple enough. Anywhere were the bone is extruding out of a Grimm is often a harder point and as such is resistant to any type of weapon which uses piercing to attack, however it can crack after repetitive hard blunt-force trauma which often reveals the softest flesh which is easy to damage. Commonly Grimm are armoured on top, which will leave their underside exposed and thus vulnerable. On top of that, no Grimm are armoured around their eyes which are distinguishable by their red glow, meaning that if you have a very good aim and sufficiently small enough weapons or bullets, they can massively cripple a Grimm. Is there anything I missed?" Pluto asked, taking his feet off the and Fen blinked, again simultaneously. Vertiya knew that Pluto was relatively well-learned, but not to that level. Even Professor Naranja lowered her glasses and looked at Pluto for a moment above the lenses, before returning them back up to her eyes. "Very well. I expect you on time for the next lesson, though, otherwise there will be more consequences. That is all," she said, resulting everyone packing up.

"How did you manage to acquire the lazy ones who also manage to know everything?" Fen asked as she and Vertiya left the classroom, sighing a little. "I swear my team are trying to give me a heart attack by raising my blood pressure. Tristov at least tries, but Karmin and Emeric… Fancy a swap?"  
Vertiya laughed at that. "Hey, not all my team are star pupils, after all my brother seems to have taken the same route as those two. Not that that is unexpected, though," she explained. Yimesz had pretty much point blank told Vertiya that he didn't expect he'd have to do lessons whilst at a Huntsman Academy. Vertiya wasn't entirely sure how to respond then. "Oh, which one was it, Emeric I think, kept looking at me?" Vertiya asked, reminding herself of that.  
"Hmm? Oh, he more or less said you were hot or something along those lines," Fen replied in an offhand manner.  
Vertiya's eyes went a bit larger than normal upon hearing that. Emeric was alright looking – jet black hair that fell just above his shoulders at a similar length to Yimesz's, but Emeric's was heavier on one side; bright amber-yellow eyes that stood out more with his dark hair; followed off by a slender build, and taller than Vertiya which was a key point – but his personality wouldn't really suit what she was looking for. After all, it would almost be like dating her brother, and that was not something Vertiya could think would work. "Was that… all he said?" Vertiya asked.  
"Oh, there were a few choice phrases he also used, but I am dignified enough to not repeat them to you," Fen replied, checking her scroll. "Ah good, duelling is coming up soon. Getting to single battle some of the people here should be good fun."  
Vertiya was not looking forward to that quite as much. Vertiya was the bookworm type, after all, and she admitted to it. She enjoyed the lessons and learning about things, but she never was good at single combat, especially in a spar against another person. After all, a lot of her cards were designed to target Grimm or groups of people, rather than a single person. "You reckon you can beat most of the people here then?" Vertiya asked, curious.  
"Most likely. Once you know how someone fights, you can work out predictable traits that they use and use it against them," Fen explained to her. "I reckon your Ruzovi would put up a good challenge, because she seems like a skilled fighter in that sort of combat. Copper from CNMN could also be an interesting one. Other than that, there's no one who I'm not confident I could comfortably dispose of."  
"Well, here's hoping I won't get put against you," Vertiya said with a small smile. Sure, Fen was sometimes a little overconfident, but she had the skill to back it up, and she never really got to a cocky level. "Unless you'll go easy on me?" she added, as they made their way into the classroom for their next lesson.  
Fen let out a rare laugh at that. "Not a chance."

The next lesson, Physics, passed similar to most of the other ones – same people writing, same people not paying attention. There was the slight difference that in this case, a lot of the people were a little confused as to how something like that could possibly be useful as a Huntsman or Huntress, but Vertiya understood rather well. It was more mechanics than atomic structure or such that Vertiya cared about, but as someone who had to work out trajectories and power for every card she used, she knew how useful it could be. So much so that she was still going over her notes long into the dojo session.  
Thankfully for Vertiya, due to the fact it was the first single spar, it was optional. Vertiya had therefore decided to stay by the spectator area, going over her notes from the lessons passed and occasionally looking up to see what was happening. Ruzovi had a challenging fight against Karmin which she narrowly came out on top of; Yimesz ended up fighting one of the girls from TDAL, Aurolia, but from the snippets Vertiya saw, she couldn't help but feel they were flirting more than battling, and Fen, who had decided to stay on, had managed to successfully dispose of two members of both TDAL and one of CNMN one after the other: Derek, Lissandre, and Nickel, and she was currently winning a battle against Nave of CNMN. Vertiya, knowing full well that Fen would probably beat her as well, went back to her notes on Grimm. Sure enough, Vertiya could hear Professor Lazuli saying that there was only enough time for one more, and if anyone wanted to challenge Fen they were more than welcome to give it a go. Knowing that Yimesz and Ruzovi probably did not want to go up for another fight, and Pluto had been busy drinking, so there wasn't really anyone she was interested to see fight against Fen. After all, she probably wouldn't fight against someone from her own team.  
"I'll do it."  
Vertiya perked up at that, as did a few others. Pluto, apparently, was not drunk enough to not do a fight, and stumbled his way into the sparring area in the middle of the dojo. Fen momentarily raised her eyebrows, but soon after shook her head, getting into a fighting stance.  
"You sure that's a wise idea considering your state, Plutonine?" the professor in charge, Lazuli, asked. "I am aware of your combat style, but even so, you seem not quite as apt for a duel."  
"Ah, what's the worst that could happen," Pluto said, grinning and taking a swig before looking over to Fen, giving a slight bow before gesturing to her. "Well, ladies first."  
Fen looked over to Professor Lazuli, but all he did was shrug and take a few steps back so he wasn't in the sparring area. Shrugging as well, she turned back to Pluto, raising her fans. "Well, I guess I might as well make it five out of five. This should be quick," she said, more to herself than anything, before darting forward towards the unaware Pluto, swiping her fans horizontally towards his neck.

Well, at least, everyone thought he was unaware. At the last possible second, Pluto half dodged, half stumbled backwards, taking another swig before looking back to Fen. "You missed," he said with a slight grin, beckoning her again.  
Fen, whose eyes flashed at the taunt, lunged forwards with a double uppercut of both her fans, but feinted at the last second, using the fans as cover to hide her attack of side kicking towards Pluto's lower torso. Pluto didn't see the kick coming, but it didn't matter as he just took it full on, without even taking a step back to keep himself balanced. "You're going to have to kick harder than that, sweetheart," Pluto said, before landing a palm thrust on Fen's chest, causing her to slide backwards. Pluto went to take another swig, but it was at this point that he realised that he was out of alcohol, and as such he swapped his flask into his usual hammer. "Might as well spice things up a bit, right?" he questioned.  
Fen glared, opening up her fans again. "You could say that," she said, going in again. Pluto swung his hammer towards her waist level, but Fen masterfully slid underneath his attack and swept out his legs – or more accurately she would have, had Pluto not over swung causing him to stumble again and dodge the attack, dropping his hammer in the process. Fen, still sliding, spun and shot out hooks from her fans towards the middle of Pluto's back, but Pluto, going to pick up his hammer, successfully fell over face first which resulted in Fen's hooks missing. Pluto however, whilst still on the floor, made eye contact with Vertiya and pushed himself back off the floor, winking before spinning around. It was at this point Vertiya realised: Pluto wasn't stumbling around by accident, this was part of his duelling style.  
Pluto went for an overhead smash with his hammer, which Fen easily sidestepped, following up with one fan slash feint to Pluto's head, her actual target to spin slash at his legs. However, Pluto, reading the feint instead dived into her, collapsing on top of her as she went to try and sweep out his legs, rolling over her and tossing her over his head. Fen flew back through the air, but carefully backflipped, managing to land on her feet and one hand, skidding a little before coming to a stop.  
Vertiya could almost see the grimace beneath Fen's bandana as she pushed herself back up, before shooting more hooks from her fans at Pluto. This time they did hit, but Vertiya wasn't entirely sure what the purpose was, because from what she could see nothing was happening. Pluto, however, answered that question for her.  
"Draining my aura, hmm? Interesting," Pluto said to Fen. Vertiya did realise at this point Fen had never actually shown her semblance, and therefore that must be what it was. Pretty similar to Yimesz, which was odd… Vertiya made a note of it. It definitely was faster acting than Yimesz's, but without any form of aura counter – Professor Lazuli hadn't bothered to set it up, because he could tell whether he needed to intervene by eye – she wasn't sure how strong it was. "That being said, I might have to stop you there."  
Pluto grabbed onto the wires trailing from the hooks, and although Fen quickly realised what was happening and attempted to make a move to throw Pluto through the air, Pluto was quicker. By falling over backwards, Pluto managed to catch Fen out, who made the smart move to release her weapons rather than get thrown into the air. Whilst he was still on the ground, Fen leapt up, before dropping down with frightening speed towards Pluto, foot extended in a stomping posture. Pluto saw this, and awkwardly fumbled with the wires he was still holding, before getting his flask and somehow lobbing it at Fen, which managed to catch her straight in the face and knocked her out of her attack, landing on her back on top of Pluto. "You know, this is not the position I would have thought to be in in a fight," Pluto said, before chucking her off him, stumbling back up onto his feet.  
Fen landed on her back, a little winded, before rolling backwards, picking up her fans mid roll. Whilst Pluto was leaning down to pick up his flask, Fen went in for a double sweep, but Pluto was baiting the attack. Using his body to hide the flask transformation, Pluto, with hammer in his right hand, backhand swung and caught Fen square on in the side of the torso with enough force to completely knock her out of the sparring area.


	12. Chapter 12

"I… um… that was something."  
Vertiya was at a loss for words. The four of them – Vertiya, Yimesz, Pluto and Ruzovi – were back in their dorm now, although Yimesz was a little late getting back, and Vertiya had a good inkling as to why. All that was on their minds though was the duel that Pluto had had with Fen not a couple of hours ago.

The atmosphere after Pluto knocked Fen out of the ring was electric. Vertiya's eyes were wide and her mouth slightly ajar when she realised what happened, and there was a deafening silence in the dojo following that. Tristov's expression was similar to Vertiya's, and the two other boys from FEKT, Emeric and Karmin, each had a hand balled into a fist over their mouths with puffed out cheeks, most likely trying to not laugh. Fen was livid, seen in her eyes, and even Professor Lazuli had a flash of surprise in his expression, but it quickly went. "Well, I guess that concludes for the day," he said, but there was a short pause before anyone moved.  
Pluto, however, was the first. Converting his hammer back into a flask, he took another swig, before stumbling his way out of the sparring ring, stopping by Fen briefly. "Thanks for the training," he said, before making his way out of the room, after which a couple people started to make their way out behind him, eventually leading to the rest of the students leaving the dojo.

"Heh, most people underestimate a drunk person's ability to fight," Pluto explained, lying back on his bed. "We'd landed our ship somewhere in Mistral, and we were pillaging some place – yeah, I know, I don't have the most lawful of upbringings – and some person, clearly drunk, came out and knocked out a good six men before he finally went down. I was curious, and although we took him captive, I requested he teach me how to fight in the way he did, because after all I was commonly drunk, and the fighting he did was something I reckoned I could pick up."  
"So it was drunken fist then?" Vertiya asked. She'd brought it up as more of a passing comment when talking to Fen back at the initiations, but as it turned out, she was right. After all, she'd never actually seen it before, she'd only ever heard of it in fighting research.  
"I believe he called it Zui Quan, but I think that translated it means the same thing. Technically speaking, you're not meant to actually be drunk, but hey it works for me," Pluto explained, chucking his flask up in the air and catching it aimlessly. "Ruzovi, what style did you use? Your fight against Karmin was a good one."  
"Oh?" Ruzovi said, her tone showing that she was caught a little off guard by the question, as she sat up out of bed. It wasn't that late as far as Vertiya was concerned, but she reminded herself that Ruzovi was still only fourteen, and by the looks of it, she got tired a little bit earlier. "I… uh… I was brought up with a lot of different styles, like karate, judo, and tai chi without a weapon, and… umm… kendo, bojutsu, kobudo and shintaido when I was younger. I preferred bojutsu though, which is what I stuck with, and why I use a bo staff," Ruzovi explained, yawning at the end her sentence. "I had to do a… lot of training when I was younger. My mother and father were kinda insistent on making sure I had as much training as possible as a child."  
Vertiya almost felt a little sorry for Ruzovi. Sure, both her parents wanted her to do well, but training was never forced on her, and everything she did was pretty much because she wanted to. That was why she dabbled around with card tricks, and Yimesz with boxing, and as such it led to their weapon choices. She couldn't really imagine having to spend her childhood doing all of that because she was pressured into it, and by the sound of it, that was what Ruzovi had. If anything, it was probably why she wasn't the most talkative – if you're training that much all the time, you wouldn't exactly have time to socialise.  
"Gee, didn't realise how much everyone seems to have done, all I did is boxing," Yimesz admitted, laughing a little after finally putting his scroll down. "Granted, it was a little more fighting than V did, but even still."  
Vertiya glared at him, part for the comment and part for that nickname, before turning to the other two. "Yeah, I'm not trained in any martial arts or any form of combat, I'm just good at throwing cards," she explained with a shrug. "Oh, and I guess more of the mental stuff, but that's about it."  
"It does help that you also have that secondary semblance that basically makes you a god, and you know how to choreograph a battle," Pluto pointed out with a grin, turning to face the twins on the other side of the room, alongside catching his flask and putting it on the bedside table next to him. "Also, Yi, you seem to have been training in another art, although I wouldn't exactly consider it useful for combat. Aurolia, wasn't she?"  
Yimesz laughed at that, and a grin spread his lips. "Well, I wouldn't exactly call that one training. More just a natural flair, for lack of a better term." To be fair, even as far as Vertiya was concerned, this was one of Yimesz's better catches. Aurolia was apparently a model alongside learning her primary combat school, and Vertiya could see why – long, wavy, ruby red hair that went alongside perfectly with her large golden-yellow eyes, and a petite hourglass frame a little shorter than herself – she pretty much had it all going for her. Even she was a little attracted to her, but Yimesz was there first, and besides, Vertiya did not meet many who swung that way.  
"Either way, fair play there. I will admit, that chick who I duelled earlier, Fen, is something of my type, but I doubt she wants the 'drunkard who can't do anything'," Pluto said, laughing at the last part having put on a subtle tone of sarcasm. When he turned, though, he quietened down a little.  
Ruzovi, clearly tired, had fallen asleep. Her shoulder length platinum blonde hair cascaded around her soft face, rising and falling gently in harmony with her breathing, and Vertiya soon realised it was getting late. "We should probably all get some sleep, now I think about it," she said, slipping underneath her covers. The two boys nodded in agreement and got into bed as well, however it was at this point Vertiya realised the lights were still on and she'd just gotten comfortable. Sighing, she said, "Goodnight," to the others before getting a pink card and lazily chucking it at the switch, which resulted in the overhead lights turning off.

By the time Vertiya actually woke up, everyone had left the room. She hadn't exactly slept in a massive amount – it couldn't be later than ten in the morning – but with no classes on today for it being the weekend, she gave herself the luxury of a little more sleep. Pluto was always up at the crack of dawn, Ruzovi was most likely training, and Yimesz… Vertiya didn't want to think about it. His personal life was his life. Yawning softly, she stretched out her arms and slowly started to roll out of the covers before a knocking that almost made her fall out of the bed made her hurry up. Wearing little more than an oversized t-shirt, she opened the door to find a fully dressed Fen standing outside.  
"Hey, you wouldn't happen to know if Plutonine is around, would you?" Fen asked, which made Vertiya gulp. Fen couldn't still be annoyed from yesterday, could she? Granted, Fen's team weren't quite as forgiving as Vertiya's, but even still, Fen seemed the type to be able to put it behind her.  
"Pluto? He's normally up at first light, but as to where he goes, I have no idea. Probably somewhere near water or such," Vertiya admitted, shrugging. "This isn't about… yesterday, is it?"  
"Well… admittedly, it is, but not for a bad reason," Fen told her. "I… just… you remember yesterday, when I told you I fight by working out the predictable traits people use in fights? Well… Plutonine was so, well, unpredictable, that I wasn't able to determine what he was going to do at any point, and I want to know how to combat that. Hence why I wanted to speak to him about it – if I can understand it, I can beat it. Plus I doubt he'll be drunk at the moment, so he should be more coherent."  
Vertiya wasn't quite convinced that Pluto would be sober considering he'd most likely been up for at least three or four hours, but she neglected to mention that. "Well, either way, I don't entirely know where he is, but I'm sure you'll find him soon enough. You still got four wins though yesterday and that's more than anyone else did, don't forget that."  
Fen's bandana raised a little, and Vertiya knew there was a slight smile behind it. "Ah, but I strive for perfection, and four out of five is under that level," she pointed out. "Nevertheless, I am sure I'll find him in due course, so I'll leave you to it. Thanks for the assist," Fen concluded, before walking off down the hall. Vertiya watched her off a little, before shutting the door, going over to her clothes to get something a little more practical on.

Once she'd gotten changed, went to the cafeteria to get something to eat, and actually made it out to explore Atlas Academy, Vertiya knew it was already gone noon. Vertiya was going to spend most of the day going over notes, but the weather outside was nice, so she decided rather than spend the day cooped up indoors, she might as well go outside. The academy had huge grounds, and it did take almost hours of walking between finding different people.  
She did pass a few of the teams from other years who were around, but most of them weren't really talkative other than a smile or a nod. Vertiya knew a lot of the older teams were out doing field work with professors or so, and they'd be getting to that soon, once they'd spent a few months in training. She also managed to go past Yimesz and Aurolia doing… Vertiya quickly moved past them before the pair of them noticed her, and a short walk later she spotted Ruzovi doing a little bit of combat practice with one of the CNMN girls, Nave. Vertiya hung with the two for a while, more watching the two at it and picking up their styles than anything; they both fought in a similar fashion, using an almost rhythmic style to their combat, but in different ways – Nave was a dancer and combined that into fighting, where Ruzovi was purely from a combat standpoint. Even still, it looked as much a dance as it did a battle, and although Vertiya knew she wouldn't exactly be able to replicate it, it was still enthralling to spectate.  
Not too long after she left the two girls to it, Vertiya went out to the lake nearby, and it was there she found Pluto, staring out across and occasionally skimming stones on the otherwise peaceful body of water. "This where you usually hang out, I take it?" Vertiya asked.  
"Most of the time," Pluto said, not immediately turning. "After all, I lived nearly all of my life on the sea, and although being on land is nice, it's a little… odd. I'm used to the floor not being this stable after all, probably why I've been drinking more," he laughed, still staring out.  
"Do you miss it, then?" Vertiya asked. Even in her head it was a fairly obvious question, but she felt she might as well ask anyway.  
"Miss it? Hell no," Pluto admitted, turning to her and surprising Vertiya with his answer. "Well, to explain, sure I loved being on the sea and all, but I was never really a fan of the whole piracy thing. Like, I don't entirely know where I got it from, but I had some sense of morality as a kid that what we were doing was, well, wrong. A lot of the crew I was with told me it'd be fine, we were only stealing from those who deserved to be stolen from, yadda yadda, but I couldn't quite agree with it. When I graduate from here, I'd love to be a captain of a ship again, but I wouldn't be doing what my old roots were. Whether it's navy or something else, I haven't quite decided. Maybe I'll even get to go to see as part of the Atlas military, that would be an interesting one. What about yourself? Any future plans?"  
Vertiya had to take a short moment to consider. Sure, she wanted to become a huntress, but… following that? She knew a lot of the huntsmen and huntresses from Atlas tended to go into the Atlesian military, but she couldn't really see herself there. Perhaps she'd follow in the way of her aunt, as she was often roaming around, pretty much carefree. "I haven't really decided on an end-term goal as of yet. I'll probably just see where the road takes me," she finally concluded, looking out to the lake alongside Pluto, whose gaze also went out the same way. "Did Fen find you, by the way?"  
"Fen? Oh, yeah, she said something about wanting training to be able to beat someone unpredictable," he replied, shrugging. "I just told her that the only way you can beat someone unpredictable is to not try and predict them, because I know that's what she does, but I said we'd have a few spars here and there if she really wanted them. I noticed you didn't particularly want to duel yesterday, however?"  
"Duels aren't my thing. I prefer fighting Grimm to other people," Vertiya explained. "If I have to fight another person – say, they're a criminal or something – I will, but if possible, I prefer to battle against things that can't be dealt with through intellect and reasoning."  
"That's plenty acceptable. Well, when we get round to going off on Grimm hunts, I'll know who to call on," Pluto replied, a small smile on his face. Vertiya had a smile on hers as well at the comment, as the sun slowly started to fall in the sky, leaving a shimmering reflection across the water as the day started to draw to a close.


	13. Chapter 13

It had been a few months since the start of Vertiya's time at Atlas, and she was settling comfortably into it. Sure, they'd only really been doing lessons on various aspects of being a Huntsman or Huntress, but it was the sort of thing Vertiya had signed up for, and what she enjoyed. Granted, she wasn't quite as confident in the spars yet – she'd been in the best part of six, only won one, and even in that one she was half convinced Pluto was going easy on her even though he wouldn't admit it – but she was slowly getting there with help from her team. Slowly. She was in one duel a couple of weeks ago against Yi's now-girlfriend, Aurolia, and that was an incredibly embarrassing moment for her.

 _"Vertiya, Aurolia, when you're ready," Professor Lazuli said from the side of the dojo arena.  
Vertiya nodded towards the teacher, before turning to Aurolia, a yellow card flipping through the fingers of her right hand. Vertiya knew full well that Aurolia was much stronger in close quarters than at range, as she had both a long sword and dagger up close but her ranged weapon was only a crossbow with a long reload time, so provided she could keep her away she'd stand a better chance. She was just about to toss the yellow card, when Aurolia's golden eyes went pink, and just like with Pechus back in the initiation stage, Vertiya's mind went blank. There was a slight difference to the time with Pechus, however. Rather than becoming filled with a rage towards Aurolia, Vertiya was consumed by something that more resembled lust. Vertiya was transfixed, astonished by how perfect Aurolia looked in front of her, to the extent that the card in her hand dropped to the floor.  
However, not long after, Vertiya's mind came to, and Vertiya realised Aurolia was looking at her with a curious, yet inquisitive look. She wasn't the only one though, as the rest of the spectators were staring at Vertiya with mixed expressions, and it was then that Vertiya realised her posture. Her head was slightly forwards, shoulders down and back arched forwards towards Aurolia with her arms draped slightly in front of her torso, and her mouth was still slightly ajar.  
"That's… odd," Aurolia said, scratching her head as her pink eyes returned to their usual gold. "My semblance has only ever worked on guys before," she continued. Vertiya suddenly remembered what Aurolia's semblance was – it was referred to as a 'charm', where the target was succumbed by a paralysing longing, resulting in them becoming unable to do anything. "Unless you're not entirely straight?"  
Vertiya's back shot up straight and her eyes widened at that, causing her to freeze. Colour started rushing to her cheeks as she realised what Aurolia was implying, and she was left stammering. "I… um… well… er…" Vertiya managed, with difficulty. She felt far more embarrassed than she ever had, and she was not a fan of it.  
"Oh, oops, didn't realise," Aurolia said, her curious look becoming a little more sympathetic. "If it's any consolation, you are kinda cute, I just prefer your brother," she added, looking over to Yimesz with a wink before turning back to Vertiya. "Anyway, aren't we meant to be duelling?"_

Since that day, it was pretty common knowledge that Vertiya was bisexual – she'd had to, with great difficulty, explain that she wasn't lesbian, just that she wasn't entirely sure where her preferences laid – but to be honest, not many people really seemed to care, and Vertiya was slowly getting accustomed to people knowing. Most people didn't treat her any differently, however, but more like the bookworm she was known to be. To be honest, Vertiya preferred that anyway. It had been quite some time since the initiations, the takedown on the Nevermore had lost its hype factor, and the Hylae twins were back on the usual scale of popularity – Vertiya stayed more in the background, and Yimesz was the king of the social crew.  
Team VYPR, however, were becoming really close as a team, and more importantly friends. Ruzovi was less shy amongst the three of them now as she'd warmed up to them all, allowing herself to be a little more 'childish' for lack of a better term. Vertiya was happy to see that side of her, though, as she knew full well Ruzovi only ever really knew training and not what it was like to be free, plus it was almost like having a younger sister. Pluto was a mixed bag – when sober, him and Vertiya had become close friends, as they shared a similar level of intellect, yet when drunk him and Yimesz were as thick as thieves. Yimesz was, well, Yimesz, but Vertiya had been able to deal with him for sixteen years, and the other two were now accustomed to his reckless and carefree style of life.

However, none of the teams really knew how well they'd work together yet as none of them had really done anything as a team outside of the initiations. Spars were rarely team efforts – more solos or duos – and theory wasn't something that necessarily required ample amounts of co-ordination. Vertiya had tried to keep them in some form of training outside of lessons, but as far as curricular activities went, there was nothing. That was about to change.  
Vertiya woke up a bit earlier than usual, before Pluto, to find something that had been posted underneath the door of their dorm. Rubbing her eyes as she wandered over to it, she picked it up, holding a pink card for light to see what it said. The contents of the note definitely got her excited.  
"We're going out… on missions?" Yimesz repeated, still yawning as Vertiya had woken the others up. "What told you… that?"  
Vertiya sighed, brandishing the note at Yimesz before chucking it on her bedside table, throwing some clothes on. "According to what it says, it's first come first serve, and I don't know about you but I'd rather be doing something interesting rather than collecting dust."  
"Wait, that's a mission?" Yimesz exclaimed, suddenly bolting upright. Vertiya knew full well that Yimesz would rather be out fighting Grimm than menial tasks like that, and by suggesting he could end up doing that, he suddenly became a lot faster in getting out of bed, to Vertiya's liking. Pluto was already good to go, taking a swig from his hip flask as he chucked clothes over to Ruzovi, who sleepily yet effortlessly caught everything, pulling her usual sweater over her head before standing up off the bed. Much like how Vertiya and Ruzovi had an older sister-younger sister style relationship, Pluto fitted somewhere in half way between a brother and a dad. He was almost like a dad of the group as it stood anyway – well, at least whilst he was sober. Not in the way that Vertiya led the group, as she kept everything in order, making sure everyone was doing what they needed to do and such, but rather instead in making sure everyone was actually alright and coping.  
"Everyone good to go?" Vertiya asked after a couple of minutes, getting a 'Yep' from Yimesz, a nod from Ruzovi, and some hand signal from Pluto mid-drink to signify he was ready, and as such she headed out of the dorm door, the other three following soon behind her.

To little surprise, VYPR were the first of the first-year teams to make it to the main hall, where some of the other teams were milling around as well from other years, others heading over to where airships were parked. Vertiya, however, headed straight over to the giant touchpad screens on the sides by the walls, and was immediately scrolling through the potential list of missions.  
"I told you there was a dust collecting mission," Vertiya said to Yimesz, pointing out the title, which literally read 'Dust Mining Assistance'. Annoyingly, there were seemingly few options, as many of the missions listed had a higher year as a requirement. Vertiya scrolled past objectives like 'Mantle Grimm Clearout' and 'Saffyer Factory Defence' – it could have been interesting to see Ruzovi's family business, but that was a third year plus mission – until finding one that sparked her interest.  
"A city sweep? I'm surprised that doesn't require a higher skill level," Pluto said, when he spotted the one Vertiya was looking at. "That being said, it could either be remarkably enjoyable… or remarkably boring. Depends on how many Grimm there are.  
"Well, it is only twenty miles out from here, and it says that we'd be going with a Huntsman/Huntress on the synopsis," Vertiya pointed out. "Everyone good with it though?"  
"A Huntsman? Ooh, wonder who we'd get," Yimesz said, with a curious glance at the screen as though looking at it would tell him the answer. "I reckon there's probably some decent ones that work with Atlas that we'd get to choose from."  
"By the looks of it, I think they're designated to us, rather than us picking from them," Ruzovi piped up, also looking up at the screen as she was a little underneath eye level for it. "Also, I'm pretty sure a lot of the teachers are or were Hunstmen and Huntresses in the past, so chances are they'd be the ones we go with as they wouldn't need to be called in. Also, to answer your question, I'm more than happy with doing that mission."  
"One of the teachers? Hope it's Lazuli," Yimesz said. Professor Lazuli, the sparring and combat coach, was one of the favourites of most of the students. Cool, calm, and calculated, Professor Lazuli had an aura of 'badassery' which a lot of the students were in awe of. A couple of times some of the students had wanted to try and challenge him in a spar, but every time he refused, pointing out that there would be nothing gained from such a venture. "To be fair, granted it isn't Orange, I'll be fine."  
Vertiya sighed at hearing that. Orange was what some of the students called Professor Naranja, and although Vertiya was fine with her, she was one of the stricter teachers, and as such Yimesz and her butted heads a little. There were a few other teachers in subjects which weren't exactly as enjoyable, but quite a few of them didn't always pay as much attention to the students, and as such Yimesz was able to get away with more. With Professor Naranja, that wasn't the case. "Well, I guess we'll find out," Vertiya said, locking her team in to do that mission, which sent information to each of their scrolls, telling them to head out to where the aircrafts were parked and which one to go to.

The four of them got into the aircraft pretty hastily, getting seated and comfortable within minutes, yet the aircraft pilot was still hesitant in taking off. When asked why, all he responded with was, "Still waiting on the Huntress." That at least told the four of them that they weren't getting Yimesz's favourite Professor – he was male after all – but nothing else as to who they were getting. Their unasked questions were soon answered, however, as a familiar ginger woman entered the aircraft, and Vertiya could almost hear Yimesz's inaudible sigh.  
"Professor Naranja!" Vertiya said, with a smile. Although Yimesz may not like her, Vertiya got on with her well. Besides, one of the topics that interested Vertiya most was the Grimm, and that was what Naranja taught. "Are you coming with us, then?"  
"Sure looks like it," she replied, taking something off her back as she took a seat in the aircraft. As she placed it in front of her, Vertiya soon realised it was a shield. A giant kite shield. Sure, Professor Naranja was a tall woman – taller than her, and maybe an inch shorter than Yimesz – but the shield she had was easily larger than Ruzovi.  
"A shield, huh?" Yimesz said, looking it up and down, unimpressed. "Can't see how it would be great in a fight, but to each their own, I guess."  
Professor Naranja looked at Yimesz with little more than a raised eyebrow. "You know, your father said the same thing to me once, just before we were meant to have a duel. So, naturally, I destroyed him."  
That got a stifled snicker from Ruzovi, and it changed Yimesz's expression of indifference to one of shock. Even Pluto seemed a little fascinated. Vertiya, however, was more intrigued about the first part. "You knew my – our dad?"  
Professor Naranja let out a rare smile, raising her voice a touch as the aircraft started to take off. "I suppose Hal doesn't really talk much about his time as a Huntsman, does he? He always preferred making the weapons to actually using them. Still, he was a pretty good shot," she explained.  
It became pretty clear at that point that Professor Naranja not only knew Vertiya and Yimesz's dad, she knew him well. Vertiya knew that Hal was her dad's nickname – his actual name was Halfayruz – but very few people ever called him that unless they knew him well.

The rest of the journey wasn't filled with much in the way of conversation, but thanks to the fact the aircraft moved with such a high speed, it didn't take longer than five minutes anyway. The five of them hopped out, with the aircraft flying up into the air, however it didn't fly off back to Atlas immediately, but instead retreated up into the clouds.  
"Is that a safety precaution, then?" Pluto asked, taking a swig from his flask whilst looking up to the grey sky. It wasn't as though there was much to look at in the city – all the buildings had been damaged in some way, some more derelict than others, and as such it was just as grey as the sky. The sheer lack of nothingness gave a dead feeling to the area, and it gave Vertiya a shudder through her spine. However, there weren't any Grimm in the area, so at least whilst the five of them moved through the city, going between and in buildings, they weren't caught unaware by any surprises.  
"So how did you know my dad then?" Vertiya asked Professor Naranja, causing the teacher to turn to her whilst they were walking through an alleyway, just about to meet a main road.  
"Don't you think that's a conversation you should be having with him?" she replied, her expression curious, but still humoured. "If you must know, we- get behind me!"  
The next thing Vertiya knew, Professor Naranja had grabbed onto her, and pulled her close to her. Vertiya was a little taken aback but immediately realised once she felt a shield behind her, and impacts hitting onto it. The cry of a Nevermore was heard overhead, and once Professor Naranja let go of Vertiya, Vertiya saw what was down the road – an army of Grimm, that had all turned to face the five of them.  
"Well, like I said, this one could either be remarkably boring, or remarkably enjoyable," Pluto said, finishing off the last of his drink and changing his flask into his cannon. "Looks like this one will be the latter."


	14. Chapter 14

"Well, I'm not convinced that a full sweep of the city is going to be possible without a fair bit of backup," Professor Naranja said, her eyes sharpening as she looked at the horde in front of her. There was not a trace of even concern, let alone fear in either her tone or expression, and it was an admirable quality. Vertiya reminded herself that Professor Naranja was a Huntress as well, and therefore she'd done training like this and most likely had fought countless Grimm in the past. On top of that, she was the resident Grimm expert at Atlas as it was the subject she taught, and from what Vertiya remembered, Grimm were attracted to feelings of negativity, especially fear, so not seeing it in her wasn't too unsurprising. Vertiya was a little cautious, slipping a green card into her hand, but she didn't let it fly yet. "Just… don't attack yet. Although they can most likely sense us being here, we don't want to unnecessarily provoke them. Swap to ranged though – if they do charge, you can probably at least pick a few of them off in the run up," Professor Naranja continued.  
Yimesz flipped up his knuckledusters, revealing the revolvers underneath, and Ruzovi bent back her staff, swapping it to its bow form before taking an arrow out, nocking it in the string but not yet drawing it back.  
"So, back out to a safe enough place whilst keeping an eye on the swarm, call in the aircraft above, and get extracted out until we can get a large enough team to take on the army?" Vertiya said, her eyes not flickering from the Grimm. Her hand holding the card was unsteady, however. Vertiya had never seen so many Grimm in one place at one time. There must have been hundreds.  
"I was going to say call in an air strike and extract through the chaos, but that is a much more sensible idea," Professor Naranja replied, mildly surprised. "You've got a good mind, Vertiya. I can see why James – Professor Ironwood made you leader. Which way, then?"  
Vertiya slowly looked around, working out possible exit routes. "By the looks of it… down this main road, directly away from the Grimm. It'll lead to the edge of the city, which would be a good place to extract, and by staying on the road, we have both a clean line of sight on the Grimm, and plenty of access to various alleyways should we need another exit strategy."  
"Sounds good to me," Pluto said, Yimesz and Ruzovi agreeing with him. "So what, do we all just, like, move backwards or something?"  
"Not quite. Pluto, you've got the largest gun but the slowest fire rate, you face the way we're going, in case we get anything coming to us from the other side. Ruzovi, Yimesz, either side. I'll keep an eye on the horde in case they move towards us," Vertiya said. The four of them moved into a diamond formation, each facing outwords, before Vertiya's eyes flicked up to Professor Naranja. "You wouldn't mind helping me keep an eye on the horde, would you?"  
"It would be a pleasure," Naranja replied, her shield raised up as the five of them started moving away from the horde with slow, calculated steps.

The Grimm, however, were not completely stationary. Realising that the five of them were moving away, the horde were slowly moving towards them, at a slowly increasing pace. There were no screeches or cries from them yet, as was common when they were rearing for an attack.  
"I don't need to be able to see that wave of Grimm to be able to hear that movement getting closer to us," Pluto said, over his shoulder. "Stick to the plan or scrap it?"  
Vertiya's mind was racing. If they moved at the same speed, the Grimm wave would eventually catch up to them anyway. If they sped up, the Grimm would sense fear, and charge. There was only one option left, and although Vertiya didn't like it, there wasn't much else she could do. "Alright. Rendezvous point is at the edge of this city where this road meets the limits. Do NOT, under any circumstance, split off by yourself. And I want to stay as a group for as long as possible. Everyone clear and ready?" Vertiya said, in a commanding tone, waiting for confirmation whilst slipping both a red and a brown card into her hand. Once she had confirmation from everyone, she yelled, "Now!" before chucking the three cards at the wave.  
As soon as the three cards, thrown in such a way that their paths would cross with each other mid-flight, connected, a cloud of gas appeared between the five of them, massively expanded by the effects of the brown card to the extent that it covered the entire width of the road. As soon as the gas cloud was up, Vertiya, using all the strength she could muster, followed up by throwing both a red and a pink card towards the edge of the road, which resulted in a flare firing up into the sky once they met. The five of them, seeing the flare a good distance ahead of them, ran towards it, but the shrieks of the Grimm behind them and the sudden vibration of the floor as they charged was not a welcome feeling, and Vertiya looked over her shoulder to see Grimm on the floor from the effects of the gas, but that was not the worrying part. The Grimm behind the ones piled on the floor were scrambling over the bodies, or were already over them and charging towards the group. Vertiya, realising that she'd run faster actually facing the way she was going, and as such she turned, before catching her foot on a crack in the road and hitting the floor, concussed as a green spark flew across her body.

Vertiya's vision was blurred as she lifted her head minimally off the ground. Filled with a dull, aching pain, she slowly looked towards the black shapes that were running towards her, unable to move from her position. However, as one of the black shapes got dangerously close to her, a golden-orange figure stepped over her, colliding with the black shape and hitting it with something, causing it to vanish. As Vertiya's eyes started to focus, she realised it was Professor Naranja, wrenching her shield back out of the ground.  
"Hawkrest, you can carry her, right?"  
Professor Naranja's voice echoed in Vertiya's ears, and she could hardly feel the arms under her back and knees, but she did feel a weightlessness as she realised she was no longer on the floor. "You need to watch where you put your feet," a deep, dull voice said which seemed to come from everywhere. "And you're bleeding quite a bit."  
Vertiya was still dazed, but she managed to come up with enough words to say what she needed. "Pocket," she whispered, up to Pluto. "Pink."  
Pluto, understanding what she meant, used a complicated manoeuvre to reach into Vertiya's trouser pocket, and pulled out a few cards, using one hand to shuffle through them until he had a pink card, which he gently placed under Vertiya's hair, where the ache seemed to resonate most. As the card started to work its magic, Vertiya's vision became clearer, and she could see that Ruzovi and Yimesz were kiting the Grimm, with Professor Naranja taking care of the ones closest to her. "What happened with your aura? Should have absorbed most of that hit, no?" Pluto asked.  
"It most likely did," Vertiya said, pulling out her scroll. When she pulled up her aura levels, as she expected, it was on 0, but with the pink card against her head, it was slowly starting to go back up, and there was a pale green glow to Vertiya for a split second which vanished soon after. With how close they were to the now landed aircraft, there was no point of Vertiya going back to her feet, so she let Pluto carry her back into the aircraft. She was rather comfortable in his arms anyway.  
Pluto put her down on one of the seats before taking one himself, with both Yimesz and Ruzovi diving in soon after. Professor Naranja was the last to get to the aircraft, but Vertiya could see full well she wouldn't be able to get on the aircraft without Grimm getting in as well. Fearing the worst, she pulled out a few red cards, able to get an angle on the closest Grimm from where she was, but Professor Naranja raised her shield up in the air, and Vertiya no longer needed to throw her cards.

As Professor Naranja's shield faced the sky, there was a break in the clouds, and through it came a blinding ray of sunlight, crashing into the ground in front of the professor. The Grimm caught directly in the beam disintegrated before their very eyes, and the ones nearby had to shield themselves from the light. In the brief moment where the Grimm were dazzled by the sudden burst of illumination, Professor Naranja jumped into the passenger bay of the aircraft and tapped the side of it, causing the pilot to immediately take off, lifting the vehicle up into the air. It was only once they were out of the range of Grimm that Professor Naranja finally rested a hand on the metal walls of the interior of the aircraft, catching a quick breather as the vault door started to close.  
"Was that your… semblance?" Ruzovi finally asked, after a brief, awkward pause of silence, as the aircraft slowly climbed in the air, gaining more height.  
Professor Naranja looked over to Ruzovi and nodded slowly, before pushing herself off the wall. "My semblance is that I can control, direct and angle beams of sunlight onto my enemies. It's normally more of a defensive semblance – for example, against other people, all it really does is blind them – but against Grimm, it can be fatal," she explained. "However, if it's dark, for obvious reasons I can't use it at all, and when it's cloudy like it is here, it takes more out of me to use."  
"Still, that does seem incredibly useful," Vertiya said, checking her head to see if it was still bleeding. Thankfully, the wound had clotted, but she did have a red streak through her hair where the blood came from. Vertiya was not fond of it. "Can you angle it with your shield, then?"  
"That's my most common method, yes," Professor Naranja confirmed, pushing her spectacles back up as they had slipped down her nose a little. "Usually, it just comes straight down from the sky where I aim it to, so if I aim it on myself, it's a simple case of angling the shield so that the beam goes towards where I want it to. I have manipulated light in the atmosphere on the way to the ground surface to essentially curve it, but that takes more out of me than is worth expending, which is why I don't normally."  
Even still, Vertiya was fascinated by what Professor Naranja could do with her semblance. She'd never actually seen an adult semblance before – her father never used his, she'd never seen her aunt do anything with hers, and at Alsius, the teachers there never bothered to give a visual representation as they had said everyone's semblance was different – so to find out about one and actually see it in person was something that sparked her interest. After all, Professor Naranja had had much more time to train to be able to do more with her semblance, so the possibilities she'd be capable of were intriguing. Vertiya's primary semblance, her invisibility, was rather linear after all – she'd turn invisible, and that would be about it. However, it did make her want to train her Hylae more, because she realised she could learn to do more with it.

Vertiya did not have much time to ponder it over though, because there was a sudden jolt through the aircraft, and alarms started blaring. Professor Naranja was the first to head to the cockpit, and there were sounds of tussle before she came back out with narrow eyes.  
"Nevermore," she explained, her tone still collected. "Good news, it's dead, and we don't have to worry about it. Bad news… It took out the pilot, and with it all of the flight controls," she continued.  
"Well, if it counts, this brings my total number of shipwrecks to three," Pluto said, chucking his flask up in the air and catching it as the aircraft started to descend. "Are these birds able to take a crash?"  
"At the height we're at, with no discernible means of bringing it down smoothly… it'd hit the floor and explode," Professor Naranja replied, punching a button on the wall near the passenger cabin door, which caused it to open up again. "You all remember the landing plans you used, back in the second stage of the initiation process? You may need to use those again."


	15. Chapter 15

"Wait… you want us to jump out?" Yimesz asked, incredulous.  
It wasn't exactly something that seemed particularly safe. At least with the initiations, they were in a controlled plane, with plenty of space between them and the ground in case of a mishap. Vertiya's aura was still recovering, and if she messed up her landing, it could well be extremely painful. Pushing herself to her feet, she had to hold her injury briefly as the movement sent a sudden, sharp pang of discomfort through her head, but after grimacing for a bit, she let go. "How high up from the ground are we at the moment? I'll need to know so I can adjust my landing," Vertiya asked Professor Naranja, who looked out the door briefly.  
"Probably only a few hundred metres at this point, and that number is dropping," the professor replied. The way the aircraft was shaped definitely helped to slow the descent, but before long it would simply start plummeting, and Vertiya knew that. "We need to move. Now. You jump first, I'll head out when I know you've all safely left."  
Ruzovi was the first to head out, getting her staff in hand as she acrobatically leapt out of the cabin door, her bo spinning as she started to descend. Yimesz went next, taking a running start as he sprinted towards the door, diving through the exit and curling up into a usual ball as he vanished from sight. Pluto was rather calm on his walk over to the door, giving one last look back to Vertiya to make sure she was alright, before swapping his flask back to cannon form. Vertiya realised Pluto was the only one who she didn't know about in regards to how he intended to reach the floor, but her query was soon resolved when Pluto put his cannon on the floor and stood on it, similar to how one would stand at the top of a mast, before the cannon fired a blank, but with enough force to send it and Pluto out the door.  
After this, it was just Professor Naranja and Vertiya left in the still-falling aircraft. Vertiya slowly made her way to the door as she was still a little uncomfortable, but soon enough she was at the position where she could jump. "How long before we can make contact with Atlas, do you think?" Vertiya asked.  
"Can't do anything instantly, but we can discuss that more when we're not in a crashing plane," Professor Naranja replied, looking down to her. "I don't mean to rush you, but we are reaching the ground at an exponential rate."  
Vertiya nodded, and after taking a breath and getting a hold of both brown and pink cards, simply leaned forwards, falling out of the aircraft. As she fell, she spun in the air so she was facing up, before throwing out her cards in the same formation she had used a few months back, and nailing it again, she managed to safely glide down to the ground with her card parachute. By the time she hit the floor, the rest of her team had grouped up, and were next to her as she landed.

"Has Professor Naranja touched down yet?" Vertiya asked, holding the side of her head for a brief moment as another pang went through it.  
"Not ye-" Pluto said, getting interrupted by a huge crash from behind him, and a shockwave that almost knocked the four of them over. A little disoriented, they turned, and saw a dent in the ground, with tiny fissure-like cracks sparking out of it. In the centre of it, shield facing towards the ground underneath her, was Professor Naranja, one arm and both legs holding onto the shield.  
"Yeah, the shield isn't large enough to double act as a parachute," Professor Naranja explained, as she stood up off her shield, picking it up off the ground and dusting off the dirt residue on it. "It does result in a rather grand entrance, however."  
"I was just concerned something had happened to you, but I'm glad to see you managed to get down safely," Vertiya said, with a relieved smile. "Did you manage to find any way of contacting Atlas?"  
"Unfortunately not. Any means of direct communication will be hardwired into the aircraft, and as such chances are they will now be destroyed," the professor said, checking her scroll. "No signal… Atlas should send out a rescue party when they realise we're not back on time or are unable to communicate with them, but that could take anywhere from half an hour to a whole day. Until then, we will have to fend for ourselves. The city we were at is close enough, most likely twenty minutes away, but as I'm sure you noticed there are more Grimm than the five of us alone can take on. We will need to stay close enough to the city anyway, so I would recommend staying in a building on the outskirts of the city, which will give us a clear escape should we need it."  
"We should probably go to the aircraft first, and scavenge any supplies we can get there before heading to the city, especially if we could be staying there for a while," Vertiya suggested. They could not see the sun behind the clouds, but it was clear that it was starting to get a little darker, and night would be upon them within an hour or two. "Did you see how far away the crash was?"  
"By the way it was flying, in that direction, and probably around a forty minute walk away from here," Professor Naranja said, pointing almost directly away from the way to the city. "We'll need to move now if we intend to get back before sundown. Keep your guards up."

The actual journey to the crashed aircraft was filled with a lack of anything, either hostile or otherwise. It was eerily silent, which although was reassuring at first, soon became a concern as Vertiya could only help but feel like there was a trap somewhere that they'd walk headfirst into. Thankfully, that wasn't the case. Or at least, not entirely.  
Once they got to the aircraft, the five of them had to quickly dive behind cover due to what was roaming around. A pack of Beowolves had beaten them to the crash site, and were scouring the aircraft, looking for the remainders of any survivors – which there wouldn't be, but the Grimm didn't know that.  
"No point going for a stealth option here, the Grimm will spot us after we've killed one or two of them off and there are too many for that to be worthwhile," Professor Naranja said in a hushed tone, behind one of the trees. "Best bet is to just take them head on, go full force and catch them off guard. Vertiya, I'll stay near you if you would like, just in case that injury spikes up because I know it should have mostly healed but you cannot attest for everything. Hylae, Hawkrest, Saffyer, go nuts. I know you'll like that Hylae."  
Yimesz had a grin, but also an inquisitive look to his gaze. "How come V gets her first name, but the rest of us get surnames?" he asked Professor Naranja.  
"When you actually pass a test I give you, maybe I'll think about referring to you by your first name," Professor Naranja said back to him coolly. "Besides, if I referred to you both by your surname, guaranteed you'd get confused in due course. Anyway, there are Grimm to kill. When you're ready."  
The four of Team VYPR looked at each other, and Vertiya gave a certain glance which the other three nodded to. Slipping a few red cards in between her fingers, Vertiya nodded, before throwing the cards in one clean sweep, causing them to split off and fly at different angles towards the Grimm. At the same time, Ruzovi got out her bo, and Pluto changed his flask to hammer form, the two of them putting the ends of their weapons together as Yimesz took a few steps backwards, facing away from the Grimm. As the explosions started firing off from Vertiya's cards, Yimesz ran towards the connecting point of Ruzovi and Pluto's weapons, jumping into a ball just before he hit them. With a sling shot-like effect, Ruzovi and Pluto used their combined efforts to launch Yimesz towards the Grimm, sending him like a bowling ball through the trees before he crashed into the Beowolves, taking out a few immediately on impact. As expected, the Beowolves turned to face the newcomer, and snarled at Yimesz, some running their paws in the dirt as they prepared to leap at him. Yimesz, still in the middle, grinned as he raised his fists and got into a standing posture, bouncing on his toes whilst slowly turning, making sure he knew where all the Grimm around him were. However, neither he nor the Grimm were the first to make a move.  
Seizing the opportunity during the standoff, Pluto had sent a cannon blast at some of the Beowolves, heavily damaging the first it hit and disorienting a few around it, and at the same time Ruzovi had ran around to flank some of the others, catching them unaware with a few well aimed arrows. The Grimm, now with three adversaries they could directly see – Vertiya was still hiding in the forest, waiting to find a good spot to catch out unaware Grimm – they turned, splitting to deal with each of them. That was what Vertiya was hoping for.  
Lining up both a red and a brown card, Vertiya pushed them together, before throwing both of them as one card into the centre of where the Grimm were. As they hit the ground, a huge cloud of smoke blasted out from where the two cards landed, and in the split second the Grimm were distracted by it, the three in the mix of the Grimm swapped to melee, and made their attack.

If there had been more than just a pack of Beowolves, Vertiya would have more than likely instructed her team a little differently, using carefully executed moves to take out what they would be up against. However, as it was just a pack of Beowolves, Vertiya was comfortable letting them all do their own thing whilst assisting with a few cards here and there, and before long most of the Grimm were eliminated.  
Ruzovi still had a couple left, and as she slammed down her staff on one Beowolf to finish it, the other one behind her had leapt towards her, claws extended. Ruzovi hadn't quite noticed it, but thankfully for her, Vertiya had, and had yelled, "Duck!" whilst chucking a green card.  
Ruzovi, hearing the shout and seeing Vertiya's card bent backwards in a matrix style, causing the green card to narrowly skim the top of her face as it flew over her, hitting the Beowolf smack in the face and causing its head to dissolve, followed by the rest of its body. With that, all of the Grimm had been dealt with, and the team were able to regroup by the wreckage of the aircraft. However, just as they had grouped, Professor Naranja met with them as well, with her shield on her back and a notepad in hand.  
"I was just about to ask where you were," Vertiya said, with furrowed eyebrows. "Were you not behind me?"  
"Oh, I was, but don't forget alongside a Huntress who is assisting you I am still your teacher, and I need to keep an eye on your progress as students and if there's any mistakes you make which I can pass over to Professor Lazuli," Professor Naranja explained, looking up from her notes. "Besides, you looked more than capable of handling the Beowolves by yourselves, and I soon realised I only needed to step in if something went awry, which was not the case. Therefore, I left you to your own devices, and you managed to do a reasonable job with dealing with the Grimm. Anyway, we can discuss that later, night is closing upon us and we should be aiming to get back to the city before darkness hits."  
VYPR nodded at that, turning to the crashed aircraft and heading in, looking for anything that they could take with them, mainly food or water, and within five minutes they had managed to find the backup supplies and a bag to carry them, which Pluto took up the job of doing. Pluto was fine carrying Vertiya not too long ago after all, so a bag of foodstuffs and water was hardly anything for him. Once they were out, they went back the way they came, with a slightly faster pace than before.

Vertiya expected there to be some Grimm out on the path, but yet again it was eerily empty for the entire trip back to the city. "Do you think there's a reason why there haven't been any Grimm or people here?" Vertiya asked, to no one in particular.  
Ruzovi was the first to respond. "Well, I guess, maybe it's because this road doesn't have people travel on it because there's nowhere to go to, and therefore there's no Grimm because there aren't any people with negative emotions or such?" she suggested. "I can only guess they've been in the city because there were once people there, and when the Grimm destroyed the cities, they had no reason to migrate anywhere else."  
"Been paying attention in class Saffyer, I see," Professor Naranja said, with a small smile. "That is most likely the case. There have never been known people who can control Grimm away from a place, and I don't see why a person wouldn't have made themselves known, either as an ally or a hostile."  
However, that was not entirely the case. From atop a cliff a good few hundred metres away from the path Team VYPR and Professor Naranja took, watching down on the road where the five were travelling, sat a small, platinum blonde woman who did nothing more than follow the five people's movements with her sky-blue eyes as they made it to the city. She watched as they climbed their way into one of the skyscraper buildings near the edge of the city boundaries, and once she saw an orange glow from one of the upper rooms, with a faint glow through the darkness, she smiled to herself. Standing up, picking up her wand as she did, she walked past the bodies of hundreds of Grimm piled up on the floor, humming a tune to herself as she headed away from the city.


	16. Chapter 16

Vertiya let out a slight yawn as she stretched out her back, but she made care to not be too loud as she did. It was still dark out, and she was the last one to be on watch, so it was still at least an hour before the sun was expected to rise. Sure, Vertiya was against the idea of a fire at first because it could well bring unwanted attention from both the obvious light and the occasional crackle that echoed in the surrounding silence, but the night had been kind to them and the warm tendrils of heat that the fire exuded definitely kept her comfortable.  
Vertiya had a keen eye, though, and as the fire was lit hours ago, she had in the far away distance seen some figure atop a cliff, walking away as soon as the decrepit room they were staying in had started to glow with the sunset-orange of the fire. Seeing that figure had had Vertiya concerned, but they'd been a long way off and nothing had happened throughout the night, at least as far as she was aware. They'd rotated shifts of keeping watch so that everyone was able to get some rest, and even though Professor Naranja was content with staying up the night, she was currently resting as well, looking surprisingly peaceful in sleep considering her usual strict demeanour. True, Vertiya and the rest of her team had seen her drop her usual manners on occasion over the course of the mission thus far, but for the majority of it she'd been the teacher they'd expected. Still, Vertiya was glad she was here, because even whilst asleep, she felt a little safer knowing that they had a fully trained Huntress with them. Vertiya was still curious about how her and her father knew each other as that wasn't made entirely clear – she assumed they had gone to school together – but Professor Naranja had said it was probably a better conversation between her father and herself, and Vertiya had respected that decision and decided to leave it until she next spoke to him, or returned back home.  
Until then, Vertiya had a job to do, and as unexciting as it was, she needed to concentrate in order to either listen out for any unusual movement, or spot anything that could either be Grimm or otherwise hostile. With a mind that was sometimes known to wander, Vertiya had to do a lot in order to make sure she'd stay on top of her own thoughts, tying her hair up in a loose ponytail so that it wouldn't distract her. On top of that, she took out a yellow card, flipping it between her fingers as something to fidget with, because she'd often found that that would help her stay calm in similar situations. There was plenty of food from the supplies they'd scavenged, but Vertiya decided to stay away from them, just because she'd been caught out eating before, and was not about to let that happen again.  
A sudden rustle from behind got Vertiya on edge, though, and with a spiked heart rate, she spun, card in hand by the side of her head ready to throw if required. However, when she saw that it was just Ruzovi, rustling in her makeshift bed, Vertiya dropped her hand with a relieved sigh, smiling a little as Ruzovi sat up, rubbed her eyes and let out a soft yawn, before she turned to see Vertiya.  
"I'm up too… early aren't I," Ruzovi said in a sleepy voice, wiggling out of her small covers and making her way over to Vertiya, sitting down next to her.  
"Well, it's not quite sunrise yet, so you'd have enough time for a bit more rest if you needed it," Vertiya said in a hushed tone as so not to wake the other three, giving them a quick glance to check they were all asleep before turning back to Ruzovi, sitting down next to her. "Or are you not able to sleep?"  
"To be honest, the sleeping bags and mats we had back in initiations was the first time I've not slept on an actual bed, and I'm still not good at it," Ruzovi admitted, shivering as a chilling breeze swept through the large, uneven cracks in the wall. The fire didn't quite go out from it, but the draught was enough to make Ruzovi huddle up to Vertiya to keep warm, and to be honest Vertiya wasn't exactly going to reject the shared body heat. Vertiya wrapped an arm around Ruzovi's shoulders as she snuggled into Vertiya, and as Ruzovi rested her head on Vertiya's shoulder, Vertiya rested hers on the top of Ruzovi's.  
"Well, if you want to sleep on me, you're more than welcome to," Vertiya said with a relaxed, yet reassuring expression. "I'm not exactly going anywhere, and I can still throw cards sat down."  
"Really? That would be great," Ruzovi said with a smile, nestling into Vertiya's shoulder a bit more, before lifting her head. "Your shoulder is not the most comfortable of things to sleep on," she added in a tired tone, before settling on Vertiya's chest. "This is better," she mumbled after, almost immediately falling asleep.  
Vertiya was a little red at this point. It wasn't as though she was exactly used to people being on or otherwise near her… well… if it was anyone else Vertiya would have had choice words and actions she'd use, but because it was Ruzovi, who was still incredibly innocent at heart, Vertiya was fine with it. She had to adjust a little to make sure she was comfortable, because although Ruzovi settled in pretty quickly Vertiya was less accustomed to it. After making sure the arm that wasn't around Ruzovi was still able to throw a card should it come to it, Vertiya relaxed against the wall behind her, her facial expression calming as she did little more than listen to the soft breathing of Ruzovi.

Professor Naranja was the first to wake up, just before the sun rose and as such just before Pluto. She was up and out of bed with haste, looking over to see Ruzovi still asleep on Vertiya. Professor Naranja's expression was somewhere between confused and curious, but Vertiya just matched it with a shrug, to which the professor shrugged as well, picking up her shield from the floor and attaching it to her back. Pluto, as always, was up pretty quickly as well, but both Ruzovi and Yimesz took their time getting out of bed – or more accurately in Ruzovi's case, off Vertiya – but there wasn't a massive rush, as they were still waiting on a pick-up team. Professor Naranja was confident that it would be with them within a couple of hours max, but until that point there was little for them to do other than watch and wait. They needed to be awake in case the aircraft came by, but otherwise, there wasn't much to do other than waiting tediously for the first sign of anything.  
At least, that was the original plan. Vertiya was the first to spot a small Ursa, which had climbed up the outside of the building they were in and had appeared through one of the holes in the walls, and although she reacted quickly with a red card and knocked it out of the room and towards the floor a long way below, its cry was still easily audible within the building, and would more than likely have echoed through at the very least the nearby area of the city.  
"Well, that's knocked this building off the list of safe places to stay at," Pluto said, leaning his head out one of the cracks to see Grimm slowly making their way over to the building the five of them were staying in, looking up to where the Ursa had fallen from. "I'm going to strongly recommend moving before we get swarmed."  
"Probably the best idea," Vertiya said, getting a few cards into her hands as precaution measures as she looked out of the window. They were a few stories up after all, and… jumping was a risky option from this height, they'd probably need to get a bit lower before they could reasonably make a jump. The ground floor would be overrun by the time they got there, after all. "Let's move."

The five of them made for an escape, quickly descending floors as the sounds of Grimm underneath them slowly increased in volume. By the time they got two floors up from the ground, the sounds of the Grimm were loud enough to tell that not only was the bottom floor overrun, they had spilled into the floor directly underneath them.  
"We're going to need to jump out this floor," Vertiya said, echoing what the others were thinking as she looked around, hair still tied up, trying to find a good area to escape from. There were some cracks in the walls, but nothing that would come down easily. Vertiya looked towards an area of wall that seemed the most cracked, and got a handful of red cards out. "See that area of wall there? I'm going to red card it a few times to weaken it. Pluto, would you be able to punch a hole in it once it's weaker?"  
"I can handle that," Professor Naranja said, pulling her shield off her back. "Just get the wall done, we don't have a lot of time."  
Vertiya nodded, turning back to the wall and throwing red cards at calculated positions in and around the cracks, and the building shuddered a little as she did, but nothing that seemed too serious as it was a large skyscraper. Once she was done she turned back to Professor Naranja, stowing her remaining cards in her pocket for the time being. "Alright, it should be good now."  
"Good. The four of you, stay behind me, and whatever you do, don't stop," Professor Naranja said, putting her shield directly in front of her, aimed towards the cracks in the wall. Team VYPR looked at each other with slight nervousness, but when the professor yelled, "Now!" they turned, running towards the wall behind her. Professor Naranja let out a yell before ducking her head behind the shield, putting all of her body behind it as she crashed through the wall, dropping to the ground a couple of stories below. The other four jumped out of the hole, clearing a reasonable distance as they landed outside the city limits, and after a short delay, Professor Naranja walked over to them, clearing rubble off her shield and clothes. "That was not the cleanest charge I've done, but it at least did the job."  
"As long as-" Vertiya started to say, before she got interrupted by similar rumbling that came from when she had thrown explosive cards at the wall of the building, just much, much louder. The five of them turned towards the building they had just jumped out of, and realised that although they hadn't noticed it whilst staying in it, the building was on its last legs, and their crashing a hole through one of the lower floors had been the straw that broke the camel's back. The skyscraper suddenly dropped down a story, before slowly falling towards where the five were stood, with a crashing sound that was getting louder exponentially.  
Vertiya's survival instinct kicked in, and she was about to run away from the falling building, when a sharp yank from the side pulled her off her feet, as Pluto pulled her sideways from the way the building was falling. "A while ago I watched a film called Prometheus, and after watching that, and having enough common sense, I know that you don't run in a straight line away from a falling thing that would crush you when you could just move to the side," he said, with a raised eyebrow at Vertiya. "Please tell me that isn't what you were intending to do there."  
"I… umm… no?" Vertiya said, a little awkwardly, as the five of them moved to the side a little more so that they wouldn't be caught by any rubble that shot out when the building finally crashed to the floor, a shockwave coming out from it. "Look, the aircraft is here," she pointed out, drawing attention away from herself and her questionable instinct.  
Vertiya was right though, because flying above the city was another Atlesian aircraft, that was flying over the toppled skyscraper, and soon came down to ground near where the five of them were standing. A few Atlesian soldiers jogged out of the aircraft, running over and making sure they were alright, but Professor Naranja waved them off, taking Vertiya and her team to the aircraft. She quickly went in to the pilot cabin once they'd all made it into the holding area, but she came out soon after.  
"Just making sure that the pilot is aware of Nevermores, considering what happened to our last bird," Professor Naranja explained, answering Vertiya's unasked question. "Well, for a first mission, I will admit there was a little more to it than I would have liked, but I think you all performed admirably."  
Vertiya smiled at that, as she looked out the window as the cargo door closed, and as the aircraft lifted up off the ground, this time smoothly heading back to Atlas, she couldn't help but feel that if this were what missions were like, she'd love to go on more. Sure, she may have gotten injured off this one, but that was due to a lack of preparation, and silly mistakes. She wouldn't be making those again in the future.


	17. Chapter 17

There had been quite the palaver in Atlas since Team VYPR had returned from their mission. Although, with the exception of Vertiya, they were mostly unscathed, they'd all ended up being rushed into medical bays to have check-ups. Afterwards Professor Naranja had gone to General Ironwood to explain the situation in the city they were in, and within a couple of hours there had been multiple upper-year teams and a small military force dispatched out. Vertiya could understand why – with a Grimm force that close, they would need to dispose of it as quickly as possible, otherwise they would run the risk of the main city of Atlas coming under siege. She herself had been cleaned up as well; her long, lime green hair back to its usual vibrant state rather than hosting a crimson red streak as it did from the blood from her head wound – which had also been attended to.  
Unfortunately though, since that mission there had been little going on in Atlas Academy outside of the normal, day to day routine of lessons. Although Vertiya was fond of it – granted, she'd enjoyed going out on the mission, but academia was her forte – and Ruzovi managed, both Yimesz and Pluto were not really the type to deal with lectures quite as well. Sure, Pluto apparently seemed to know everything anyway to some degree, but he was definitely a hands-on type of guy, which Vertiya could only put down to his upbringing. Yimesz however was not the type to know everything, but he was perhaps worse at paying attention than even a drunk Pluto, and although he'd since at least been paying a little more respect to Professor Naranja since the mission, his general personality wasn't exactly going to change.  
However, Vertiya wasn't currently in a position where she could afford to spend precious concentration in reminiscence. With Fen opposite her, her blood red irises eyeballing her every move, Vertiya's mind was whirring as a vast assortment of potential moves flickered through her mind. There were various outcomes to whatever play she made, and although Vertiya was unsure how Fen would counter, she realised that risking it would be the best option, and as such she moved her knight forwards to put Fen's king in check.  
Fen grinned a little, looking at the board with a slight grin on her face. "I thought you preferred to play things safe? Rather unlike you, Vertiya," she said, as she moved her queen to the side, taking the knight. "I mean, I admire the attempt, but I wouldn't say it was your best play."  
Vertiya, however, had a smirk curling the edge of her lips, as she moved her rook straight forward. There was a gap in between Fen's pawns, which was previously covered by the queen, but Fen had overlooked it and given Vertiya an easy line to get the rook towards her king. "Ah but sacrificing one piece to win the war is a play most overlook," Vertiya responded, with Fen's king now in checkmate. "I believe that makes it five three?"  
Fen's grin had dropped by this point, but it wasn't replaced by anger, more just a look of humoured defeat. "Well, I took three games off the strongest tactician in our year, so to be honest I'll accept that," she said. "Besides, you still haven't taken me up on that duel offer."  
Vertiya's eyes rolled, but her lips still curled upwards, thinning her emerald-green eyes. "Of course I won't take you up on that duel offer, because we both know you'd beat me with one arm tied behind your back," she responded. "After all-"  
Vertiya got interrupted by a deafening combination of cheers and rage, and both her and Fen looked to the side to where it came from. Team FEKT had one of the largest dorms in Atlas academy, so the whole of VYPR had headed over to chill for the day as they'd been given it off. Fen and Vertiya had been playing chess, Tristov and Ruzovi had been chatting about weapons and such, and the other four boys…  
Vertiya wasn't quite sure how Pluto had managed to get that much alcohol into Atlas, or whether it was some large store of what he used in his flask, but either way himself, Yimesz, and the two other boys from FEKT Emeric and Karmin were all on some racing game, accompanied with drinking. It was more even than Vertiya would have expected, and they had varying results – Pluto was the best at handling his liquor, but the worst at gaming, Yimesz was the opposite in that he was the quickest to get intoxicated but the strongest at playing, and both Emeric and Karmin fitted in somewhere in the middle of the spectrum on either. As such, the races between them had been far closer than they should have been, and the noise coming from the four of them had been getting progressively louder over the course of the day. "Boys," Vertiya muttered, with a slight shake of her head.  
"Is that why you prefer girls, then?" Fen asked, a sly smirk raising the side of her mouth. "I don't blame you, especially considering the company we seem to have."  
Vertiya went a little pink, and scowled at Fen, but there wasn't a serious note to it and it dropped from her face soon after. "There isn't really anyone of either gender here who I could see myself with – well, at least, in our year," she said. Her mind did briefly flit over to Pluto, but… Vertiya did not want to get into anything with anyone she was in a team in, she'd known that from the start. Plus, although the two of them got on really well, Vertiya was never going to be a huge fan of the alcohol. Vertiya also knew that Emeric had some notes of attraction to her, but she didn't quite see the same in him. However, on the note of Pluto, Vertiya had not forgotten that Fen had actually been doing some training with Pluto due to the fact that Fen still could not beat him in a duel, and if Fen was going to catch her out like that, she could always turn the tables. "What about you and Pluto, though? You've been spending a fair bit of time together," Vertiya asked, with an innocent expression.  
The tiniest tinge of colour flickered on Fen's face, but she covered it up almost as quickly as it appeared. "That is purely a business relationship," she said, unwavering in both tone and guise. "Teacher-student-esque. Even if there were any feelings of attraction, I do not think that would last. We have too many contrasts."  
"Well, as the saying goes, opposites attract," Vertiya responded with a teasing tone, pushing herself up to her feet. "However, I need to make a move. I trust the rest of my lot will be fine here?"  
"May have to kick them out eventually if they keep this going," Fen replied, peering out the tall, thin glass pane to her side. Darkness had not yet settled on them, but the light was fading, and the rose-pink hue of the sky signalled that night would soon arrive, which was hardly a peaceful setting considering the volume of sound from the boys. Vertiya had learned to block out noise of this level due to having lived with Yimesz for so long and the sort of parties he'd throw, but Fen was less equipped to deal with this. "Or I'll just send you angry messages on your scroll. One of the two should work."  
Vertiya chuckled a little as she made her way towards the door, with a small smile curling her lips. "Maybe I'll leave them with you until you stop requesting a duel with me," she suggested, not looking back as she exited the dorm.

Vertiya hadn't actually left for a given reason, as she didn't have anything going on in the evening that required her to leave FEKT's dorm. She just needed some peace and quiet, and a little time to herself, and that led her to wandering the corridors of the academy in the blissful serenity of night, flipping a pink card through her fingers. It was one of Vertiya's habits even as a child – wandering around in the late hours of the day – and even now she was still yet to grow out of it.  
However, she was not so unaware as to miss out on hearing the footsteps coming towards her. The hallways were not completely blanketed in darkness, but even still it was not light enough for Vertiya to make out the figure until it came closer. At first glance, Vertiya had thought that it was one of the teachers she had yet to meet, as some of the teachers only dealt with classes for the elder years, but when an unmistakable mop of turquoise-blue hair came into view, Vertiya immediately knew who the man was.  
"Dad!" Vertiya exclaimed, running up and giving him a hug. Vertiya's dad had a well-built figure – even as he was reaching close to forty, he had still attained an almost sculpted physique with broad shoulders, muscular arms, and a toned torso – and even with flecks of grey in his hair and the stubble that softly shadowed his face, he still looked not a day over thirty. Vertiya had to admit, though, she was a little confused. "What are you doing here?" she asked, pulling her head away from his shoulder to look up to him. Vertiya, at only five foot six, was a half foot shorter than her dad who stood at six foot exactly.  
"I suppose it's a little late to say that I came here to see my two kids, isn't it," he responded with a chuckle, ruffling Vertiya's hair in an affectionate manner. Vertiya and Yimesz had spoken to their father multiple times thanks to their scrolls, but neither had actually seen him in the flesh since they left for Atlas. "I was originally here to see General Ironwood about the project we're working on, but on the way out I bumped into Griya- Professor Naranja as you probably know her, and we were chatting for a while," he explained. "Apparently you did quite a good job on your last mission, from what she said."  
Vertiya grimaced a little at the memory of the mission. Sure, she had enjoyed it, but Vertiya was a little bit of a perfectionist, and her view on her performance was that it was at the very best sub-par. "I probably could have done better," she responded, sighing. She'd carefully skipped over the part where she concussed herself from nothing but lack of self-awareness, because although her father was a nice enough man, he would probably joke about it more than she'd like.  
"Ah don't worry about it, it was only your first mission after all, and I'm sure there's bits you can pick up from it," Vertiya's father replied reassuringly. Sure, he was a practical joker at times, but if he needed to have a more serious tone, he could flip between the two almost immediately. "Besides, if Professor Naranja says you did well, you should take it. Back when we were on the same team she would nag me all the time because 'oh you're not doing enough damage' or 'you're aiming at the wrong targets' and such," he continued, sighing in such an exasperated manner Vertiya was convinced it was sarcasm.  
"That's understandable, she is often like that in lessons with Y- wait, you were on the same team?" Vertiya asked, incredulous. Her father had said that he was teammates with Professor Naranja in such an offhand manner that Vertiya had almost missed it altogether. "Why didn't you tell me?"  
"You never asked," her dad replied coolly, laughing. Vertiya did know that he didn't talk about his Huntsman life much, and as such she never really asked questions on it, but this was still a shock nonetheless. "Yeah, her and myself were part of Team Mahogany a good few years back. I'll admit, I did flirt with her a bit back then, probably more than I should have."  
Vertiya cringed hard at that – she did not exactly want to know that her dad and her favourite teacher were close in that way. "I… you did not need to tell me that," she said, her expression contorted in disgust.  
Vertiya's dad let out a hefty laugh at that whilst shaking his head, his blue eyes twinkling. Vertiya and Yimesz's hair colour was a halfway point between their mother and father – their father with turquoise blue, whereas their mother's was blonde – but almost everything else both Vertiya and Yimesz had inherited from their mother. Their mother was relatively slender, but somewhat curvaceous in certain parts, and both of the twins had that trait, as well as the emerald green eyes that came from their mother. "It didn't matter anyway. It wasn't too long until I realised that she wasn't exactly into guys anyway. Pretty sure she's still married to Ness from our team as it stands."  
This evening was full of surprises for Vertiya, but the last one to hit her ears was more readily received. Vertiya had an inkling of a feeling that could be why she could relate to Professor Naranja easily, but it was more likely the personalities. "Wait, who was your leader then?" Vertiya asked. Mahogany was most likely a combination of the letters M, H, G, and N, and as Vertiya's father was called Halfayruz – often shortened to just Hal – with Professor Naranja being Griya and Ness being the third, the M was still unknown.  
"Oh, a guy called Magnet," Vertiya's father explained in a nonchalant manner. "To be honest, I have no idea where he is now. He was a bit of an… odd one, so to speak, and the three of us lost contact with him not that long after we graduated from Shade." Hal sighed briefly on the memory, but after he looked down at his watch, he realised what time it was, and looked back to Vertiya in a different manner. "Anyway, I best be getting off if I want to get back home before midnight, because your mother will be wondering where I am. Give my love to your brother, and I'll probably speak to you in a few days," he concluded, kissing Vertiya on the top of the head before walking off. Vertiya turned and watched him go for a few seconds, before going back to flipping a card through her fingers, now walking back towards her dorm.


	18. Chapter 18

The weeks had seemed to fly past for Vertiya since she bumped into her father, and before she knew it exams were around the corner and revision was happening. The exams were not crucial to being able to stay in Atlas, but were more just a guideline for the teachers to see how the students were progressing academically, and as such there were varying responses to them. Vertiya was taking them seriously – she'd been in the library every day for the last couple of weeks, getting study done to prepare – and Ruzovi was at least going over things in her spare time, but neither Yimesz or Pluto had bothered to even pick up a book yet. Although Vertiya would have preferred the two of them to actually get some work done, there was nothing she could do to force them into it, and so her time in the library had not been with any of her team.  
That wasn't to say she'd been alone, though. At first she had, as she wasn't aware that there was anyone else in her year preparing for the exams, but soon enough she realised there was another who was spending their time in the library as well. Techta Wayve, the leader of team TDAL, had also been taking the exams seriously, and although the two of them originally decided to study separately, they'd at one point worked together, and now the two of them decided to revise as a pair. Vertiya found a little bit of herself in Techta as well – they were both not the most sociable of people, they were both somewhat awkward around new people, and they'd both ended up leaders of their respective teams even though neither of them expected it – and that was probably the main reason why their friendship blossomed.  
Vertiya was in the library first on this particular day, and although she, as per usual, decided to go and start up by herself, she soon heard footsteps approaching her and was greeted by the familiar large, turquoise eyes of her new friend. Techta slid in to the seat next to Vertiya, tying up her deep blue hair before turning to face her. "I'm not too late, am I?" Techta asked, a little concern present on her expression. Techta's voice was surprisingly deep for a girl, and didn't quite match her looks – with a heart-shaped face, large eyes, small nose, and fairly small build as she was both shorter and slimmer than Vertiya, she had more of a cute look to her – and as such Vertiya had first assumed her tone would be high pitched, similar to Ruzovi, but Vertiya had gotten used to it now.  
"No of course not, I just got here early," Vertiya explained with a smile, moving her set-up a little so that Techta could see it. There were scribblings, notes and various books that the both of them had worked on, and Techta was quick to get a pen and scribble a little more on the dust workings that the pair had been recently looking over. Vertiya was not used to working with other people before as she never found anyone who was on a similar intellect level, but Techta was smart enough that Vertiya was not doing all the work, and it did a great job of making sure Vertiya was not stressed under the workload. Whilst Techta was writing things down, Vertiya simply flipped a card through her fingers as she always did whenever concentrating, waiting to see what she had thought of.  
"You really love handling your weapons, don't you," Techta said with a grin, able to see Vertiya's card shuffling through her peripheral vision, as she finished drawing up a diagram in the small blank areas around the notes already written on the piece of paper she was using.  
"They're convenient for fiddling with," Vertiya explained to her, shaking her head with a humoured sigh. Even before Vertiya settled on dust infused cards as her weapon of choice, she still was fond of card magic tricks, and was rarely seen without a deck of cards on her person, whether shuffling them, flipping them through her fingers as she was now, or doing a couple of tricks. "I guess it's a bit harder for you to bring your lot here, isn't it?"  
"Well you know as well as I do if I were to start messing around with my weapons around here, all our notes would become useless within minutes," Techta pointed out, laughing. That led Vertiya on a mental train back to when she first found out about Techta's style of fighting, and how much it surprised her.

It was a few weeks back, when Vertiya had recently started talking to Techta and the pair of them had started working together. Vertiya had a fair bit of info from most of the students back from initiations, but try as she might, she couldn't find anything on Techta no matter how much she looked through her past writings.  
However, at one point when they'd done a lot of work and were more or less done for the day, their conversation managed to somehow go over to weapons, and of course Techta knew about Vertiya's weapon. Although it wasn't a talking point any more, everyone still knew about the Nevermore.  
"Why, what weapon do you use then?" Vertiya asked, having admitted she couldn't actually remember what she used. Techta wasn't offended as she wasn't someone who tended to do much in the way of combat – again, similar to Vertiya – but she wasn't bothered about explaining.  
"Oh, I use a water gun," Techta had explained, so calmly that it sounded as though water guns were common when everyone used actual guns in their loadouts. Vertiya knew that her expression was shocked, because she could see and hear Techta's laugh from it. "Oh, and water balloons as well," she added, amused.  
"Wait… How?" Vertiya asked, trying to formulate how on earth a water gun would possibly do anything. Unless it was to the extent that it had the power of a fire hose, or there was something that somehow affected the water, Vertiya could not think of a way that it would do any significant damage.  
"Tell you what. Next time there's a duel on, I'll go in for a change, and I'll show you then. If I win, you're making the snacks for the next three times we're in here," Techta suggested, grinning. Vertiya was far too intrigued to let the opportunity slide, and although she was in no way the cook that her mother was, she'd found a good cookie recipe recently that she intended to try out as it stood.  
"You have managed to appeal far too much to my curiosity," Vertiya confessed, her expression defeated, yet in a joking manner. "You're on."  
Vertiya only had to wait until the next day before Professor Lazuli decided to give the option of it to anyone who didn't want to study during his class. Emeric from Fen's team decided to give it a go, but with the exception of Vertiya, no one was bothered about him going for it when Techta said she'd give it a go. Even Aurolia, Yi's girlfriend, asked Techta if she was sure about it, and that she'd go in for her if Emeric was causing problems. Techta, however, was adamant, and went to the ring, taking her water gun off her shoulder sling.  
Emeric was unimpressed about Techta's weapon, and when Professor Lazuli allowed them to start, Emeric taunted her into going first. Techta, with a shrug, fired a blast from her water gun, which caught Emeric full in the face without doing any damage at all. Emeric audibly chuckled at the lack of damage done by Techta's weapon, but that laugh soon vanished when Techta wiggled the fingers of her right hand – she was holding her gun in her left – and Emeric got pulled down, his head slamming into the ground face first.  
Vertiya immediately understood how Techta's weapon worked, but it didn't seem like everyone else had yet, least of all Emeric. He got back to his feet with a scowl, before extending strings from his hands, causing his puppet to lunge towards Techta. She wasn't caught out, though, and quickly grabbed a water balloon from the holster full of them around her chest, using an underarm throw to hit the puppet before opening out her palm. As she did, the puppet got launched back at Emeric, smacking him in the face and knocking him backwards.  
Techta didn't stop there, though. Whilst Emeric was getting back to his feet, she launched a load of water from her gun up into the air, controlling it into a floating bubble which was rapidly expanding. Emeric could only watch as the bubble turned into a wave, which crashed down on Emeric and shoved him straight off the spar platform.  
There was a stunned silence for a moment, before Derek, Aurolia and Lissandre, the rest of Techta's team, started cheering and applauding, leading some of the others to do the same. Techta curtsied and gave a small smile, before heading down from the sparring area herself.  
Vertiya wandered over to her as she deescalated, clapping with a smile on her lips. "Hydrokinesis is your semblance then, huh," Vertiya said, more of a statement than a question, which brought a similar smile to Techta's expression.  
"Very observant," Techta replied, swinging her gun around to her back. "Which I suppose begs the question, what are you bringing to the library? I could kill for something sweet. Cookies would be great, now I think about it, if you're up for that."

"I didn't lose you somewhere, did I?"  
Vertiya got brought back to the real world by Techta's question, and she hurriedly shook her head. "No no, I just got lost on a train of thought," Vertiya explained, looking over what Techta had been doing. There wasn't anything she saw that she didn't understand, it was just a different style to how she would work herself. "How about if you did this though?" she continued, drawing a couple of lines on the diagram Techta had drafted of dust with various weaponry.  
The pair worked seamlessly through the day, and before they'd even realised it, the outside world had gotten dark, and it was only when Vertiya let out a yawn that she realised how late it was. That wasn't uncommon – Vertiya often would work for hours on end with time flying, because she was one of the rare few who enjoyed it – and as such, she knew when was the best time for her to stop.  
"We should… probably call it there for today," Vertiya said, checking her watch before rubbing her eyes, followed by looking to her right to see Techta. She'd managed to fall asleep, snoozing peacefully with her face sideways towards Vertiya, resting on one of the open books she was going through. Vertiya, knowing that sleeping on a book was remarkably uncomfortable once you woke up, gently nudged Techta's shoulder.  
"Who what where?" Techta suddenly said as she shot up into an upright position, looking around rapidly before realising there was just Vertiya next to her. "Oh… I fell asleep didn't I? Oops," she continued, drowsiness returning to her voice.  
Vertiya giggled softly before nodding. "I was just saying how we should probably call it a day, which considering your napping is probably the best path," she explained. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow?"  
"Wait… one more thing I wanted to ask," Techta said, yawning mid-sentence and rubbing her eyes herself, which had gone red through tiredness. "How is it you manage to… be friends with everyone? Like, all I have are my team and you, and yet everyone else seems to like you."  
Vertiya managed to mask her emotions, which were a blend of surprise and confusion. She never exactly thought she was the most popular of people, quite the opposite really, so for someone to ask that caught her off guard. "I… dunno, really. I don't exactly think I'm friends with everyone, it's more or less just my team, you, and Fen. I don't really know anyone from CMNM," Vertiya admitted. "My brother has always been the sociable one. Yimesz just knows how to work people, I guess. Kinda like Aurolia in your team, no?"  
Techta shook her head at that last point, a small frown appearing on her face. "It's actually quite different to what you think. Aurolia and I talk a lot, and she's told me how the only reason she got popular is because of her looks," Techta told her, looking out into what seemed like nothingness. "She actually used to get quite upset really, because she'd get ogled after because of her model status and her attractive appeal, yet no one ever bothered to find out anything about her. Most of the time, everything you see from her is all put on in order to fit what people believe she should be like and in order to be able to make friends with people. According to her, Yi is actually the first person she's been with that actually wants to know more about her true personality, and is the best boyfriend she's had."  
Vertiya was learning a lot of surprising things tonight. Vertiya always considered Yimesz as the 'player' type in relationships considering how many he had been through, but to find out he was actually caring for someone was not something she'd even dreamed of. "Huh. Guess I should probably stop berating him then," she said, thinking out loud more than conversing. "I suppose it helps if you play to the people, which is not something I can or will do. People know me probably because of the whole Nevermore thing. That's more or less it."  
"Well… that's not entirely true either," Techta said, getting up out of the sofa and taking her things. "I mean, whether you know it or not, Yimesz is not the only attractive Hylae at this school. I can guarantee that people will talk to you if you make yourself more approachable," she concluded with a grin, before heading out of the library.  
Vertiya wasn't sure what to think about that. Still being unsure on her true sexuality made it difficult for her to try and forge a romantic relationship. Besides, out of who she talked to, Fen and Techta were both straight, Ruzovi was still too young and also straight anyway, and Yimesz was her brother. That left Pluto… However, Vertiya was fairly certain she didn't want to do anything with someone she was in a team with, because that would complicate things more than they needed to be. Besides, she didn't have time to think about romance with exams just around the corner. Sighing, she packed up her things and left the library as well, leaving the lights to fade to darkness as she went back to her dorm.


	19. Chapter 19

"That… could have gone better."  
"Of course it could have! You did a grand total of zero hours prepping for it!"  
"Hey, that's not true! I read like… five pages of my notes."  
"Yimesz, you have written about three since you started this year. There is no way you could have read five."  
Vertiya shook her head in exasperation, her eyes covered by the palm of her hand as the rest of the students left the examination hall. Due to the technological advances Atlas had put into their education, they already all knew how well they all did on their scrolls. Vertiya, obviously, had not dropped a single mark. Ruzovi had done reasonably well, and Pluto, to Vertiya's slight annoyance, had come out with a very good score even having gone into the room intoxicated. Yimesz, true to form, had barely scraped a pass – not that it mattered that he didn't fail, but Vertiya still would have liked him to do better. Exams would soon start meaning something in a couple years, after all.  
"Anyway, I did tell Aurolia I'd see her once we're done with the exam. End of year and all," Yimesz said, ruffling his sister's hair jokingly before vanishing off into the crowd. Vertiya let out a long, heavy sigh that no one heard, rolled her eyes, and then caught up to the other two members of her team.  
"Well, I'm proud of both of you, even if Pluto got through on an annoying level of natural intelligence alone," Vertiya said to the pair of them, patting them both on the backs. "That being said… what now, though? That's the year done, there isn't really much else to do."  
"Hey, not all of us can be gifted with being uncannily talented at everything we do," Pluto said to Vertiya with a wink. "But I need to head back to sea for a couple months. I am definitely up for a get together over the summer, however. It would be nice doing something without the bounds of education tying us down."  
Vertiya couldn't fault him, as much as she wanted to. Pluto, after all, was remarkably smart for someone who never properly went through education, was surprisingly adept at combat as they all knew – memories of Pluto beating Fen in _that_ duel were always around in Vertiya's mind, mainly because neither of them would let it go – and most importantly, he was a great friend. Vertiya had her doubts at the start of the year with him being the alcoholic he is, but Pluto was genuinely a good person.  
"Me too. I don't really ever have anything to do at home, after all," Ruzovi added, agreeing with Pluto. Ruzovi, as far as Vertiya was concerned, was the one who'd grown the most out of the team. Sure, they'd all come a long way since the start of the year, but Ruzovi, who had come in to the year younger than anyone else, and still only having just turned fifteen a couple of weeks ago, had skyrocketed in her development both with her skills and as a person. At the start of the year, Ruzovi had struggled speaking to Vertiya, and almost couldn't speak to anyone else. Now? Sure, she was still a little shy, but she'd definitely blossomed and broken out of her comfort zone, and Vertiya could go as far as to say she was the most skilful in combat out of the whole team. Her tactics could still use a little work, but that was what Vertiya was there for.  
"Trust me, I would love to get together and do something over the summer. Dealing with no one but Yimesz for three months will make me go insane after I've been able to get breathing space this year," Vertiya admitted, smiling. It wasn't that Vertiya disliked Yimesz – they were still twin siblings, after all – but she needed time off every now and again. There was the chance that he could be distracted with Aurolia, but that would only be for short periods of time. "However, there are a couple more people I need to see before we leave to head back home. Keep your scrolls on you, I will need help this holiday," she concluded, giving both of them a hug before breaking off, looking for the last two she wanted to see.

First up was her newest friend in Techta, who was currently looking more stressed than Vertiya thought she should be. Vertiya could see how well her team did as she was the leader of them, but she didn't have any access as to how anyone else did.  
"You alright?" Vertiya asked once she was close enough to Techta for her to hear, causing her to look up from her scroll, Vertiya's emerald eyes meeting Techta's turquoise ones.  
"I… no," Techta said, showing Vertiya her scroll. 97% was what was displayed on the screen, and Vertiya, expecting bad results, ended up with an expression somewhere between confusion, happiness, and inquisitiveness.  
"Wait… why? That's a brilliant score!" Vertiya exclaimed, her hands rubbing Techta's shoulders reassuringly. "How's that gotten you in a huff?"  
"It's stupid really," Techta said, sighing with a pained smile on her lips. "I'm a perfectionist, and if there's something I know I can do well, I won't be happy with anything other than 100 percent – kinda like the rest of the team leaders in our year, bar Copper," she explained. "Knowing I dropped a couple marks on things I should have aced bugs me. Plus, lemme guess, you got full marks? That's triggered my competitive side."  
Vertiya couldn't lie to her. "I… yeah, I did," she admitted. "But to be honest, were it not for you helping me out in those library times, I'd probably have not done better than 85. Seriously. You carried me through that exam, and everyone makes slip ups from time to time. Besides, I'm not going to stop pestering you until you cheer up and tell me that you'll be fine."  
Techta giggled a little at that, colour starting to return to her cheeks. "Fiiine, I guess. Besides, paper doesn't do well in water, so at least I know I have that one up on you," she said, laughing. Vertiya sighed at that, but she was happy to see that Techta was lightening up. "Keep in touch, alright? I'd like someone to talk to over the break."  
"There's no chance that that wouldn't happen," Vertiya said with a smile, giving Techta a quick hug. "You're like the only other smart person I know." Pluto was intelligent, after all. There were slight differences. "I'll see you soon."

There was one other person who Vertiya wanted to see, and that was the first friend she'd actually made here not including Yimesz. Although Vertiya hadn't seen much of Fen recently since exam season, she was still one of the people Vertiya was closest to, and so she had her eyes peeled until she found the unmistakable shaved side of Fen's head, and strolled over to her.  
"You haven't come to brag, have you? Otherwise I will have to force you into a duel," Fen said, a slight grin on her lips. "After all, I assume you aced it?"  
"It'll be hard to do that considering I can escape the duel room for the next three months," Vertiya pointed out with a matching grin. "But yeah, I did manage to get top score. How'd you do?"  
"Could have been better, but for someone who rates combat over academia, I'll allow it for now. My mother won't be too pleased that I didn't get the highest score in the year, but I don't think it'll be that much of a problem," Fen replied, casually fanning herself. It was summer now, and although Atlas was not necessarily a warm region, it was at the very least warmer now than normal. "After all, she never actually led her team, so I've got one up on her there."  
Vertiya had never actually heard Fen speak about her parents, mainly because it had never come up in conversation. But with the tone of voice Fen had when she was referring to her mother, Vertiya felt it best to not continue on with the subject. "Anything interesting going on in the holidays for you, then?"  
"Other than escaping my team for three blissful months of relaxation? No, not really," Fen explained with a shrug. Fen did have probably the hardest team to control, and Vertiya did not envy having to keep a check on both Emeric and Karmin, and could understand why Fen could use the break. "I might find out where you live though and stop you from being able to evade a fight, however," she added jokingly.  
Vertiya gave her an unimpressed look, but Fen's laugh at it made it hard for Vertiya to keep it up. "You know what, I might just tell Pluto to live at mine for the next few months so that he can take my place," Vertiya countered, grinning as Fen's expression contorted.  
"That was one time," Fen stated, a little flustered. "I would be able to beat him now. I'm certain of it."  
"Well, I'll make sure to let him know," Vertiya teased, giving Fen's hand a shake. Fen wasn't much of a hugger, after all. "I'll see you when we're back here."

After she broke away from Fen, Vertiya found Yimesz with Aurolia, and rather quickly turned away until they'd finished…  
"One day, you are going to end up in a relationship, and I am going to be the most embarrassing person you will ever meet," Yimesz said, his tone humoured. Vertiya took that as a sign that Yimesz's mouth was not against Aurolias, and after turning back to face the pair of them, a quick cold glare towards Yimesz, she could see that the pair of them were facing her.  
"You do that and you will see what happens when I mix blue with brown," Vertiya said, her voice expressionless. Brown expanded, blue froze. Combined, she could quite easily encase Yimesz in a block of ice for quite some time. "And I actually like Aurolia, which makes a change."  
Aurolia gave a warm smile to that. "I don't claim to have any experience in sibling love, but you two have a good bond, no matter how you act towards each other," she said, looking from Vertiya to Yimesz. "However, I gotta go. I'll see you in a week Yi," she said to him, reaching up and kissing him one last time before walking away, with an air of elegance that only she could pull off.  
"A week? You do have scrolls, you know," Vertiya said with a sigh, once Yimesz had walked over to her. "Mind you, if it gets you off my back, maybe that's not all a bad thing."  
"Maybe I'll get Aurolia to wingwoman you, I'm sure she'd do it," Yimesz replied with a sly grin, and although Vertiya had the faintest pink tinge to her cheeks for a split second, her scowl quickly dispelled it. "I mean, you'd prefer her doing it to me, right?"  
"That's… that's not the point," Vertiya retorted, folding her arms. "I am perfectly comfortable with not being tied down to anyone, and living a free, single life."  
"Nah, it's just the fact that you're scared of love, isn't it," Yimesz nimbly responded, nudging his sister in the side of the ribs with a joking elbow.  
Vertiya spluttered for a moment, unable to come out with a response, before throwing her hands in the air and walking away. "Ah, good, perfect timing. Dad's he- what the?" Vertiya said, looking into the sky.  
Vertiya knew the trademark emblem and colour scheme of her dad's company, which caused all the vehicles to be a standout aqua against the grey/white of near everything else, but the aircraft that flew in, although wearing the colour and emblem of the Hylae corporation, looked like it cost about the same as half the school.  
Vertiya wasn't the only one who noticed either. Most of the courtyard – as they were still there, having gotten out of the same exam hall – were either stared at the aircraft in silence, or pointing it out and chatting avidly about it. When Hal, Vertiya's dad, exited the actual aircraft, he gave a joking bow to the students before confidently strolling over to Vertiya and Yimesz.  
"Like it? It's a new prototype I've been working on," Hal said, giving both his kids a hug. "I might have made it look a little too flashy, but I'm calling this one more of a 'people' transporter, rather than arms or weapons or the like."  
"I… that looks more like a private jet than anything else, Dad," Vertiya replied, but she still was impressed, and she couldn't hide it from her eyes. "How much did it cost to make? It looks like a fortune."  
"Surprisingly, not that much. I have a lot of good contacts, and actually good links with Saffyer now thanks to your team," Hal replied with a grin, before tapping something on his own scroll. "You've said all your goodbyes, right? I've just put your stuff in the bird."  
"Wait… what? How?" Yimesz asked, confused. His expression, however, quickly went from that to looking quite obviously as though he wanted something. "Also… Dad… you know how much you love me…"  
Hal laughed, shaking his head. "No Yi, I'm not letting you pick up Aurolia in this thing yet," he answered, not even needing to hear the question. "Maybe when it's no longer in prototype, but not just yet. Shall we go?"  
Yimesz looked a little dejected at first, but him and Vertiya eventually made their way over to the aircraft, taking a seat in the plush chairs whilst getting envious looks from a few of their friends. Vertiya had time to reflect on her year as the plane started to lift up into the air, and she couldn't help but feel how quickly it had gone. It felt like only yesterday that she had Ironwood walk into their house, and tell her that both she and Yimesz had gotten spots at Atlas, and from there it was a whirlwind. She'd learnt so much though, and although they'd had a rocky start, she couldn't have asked for a better team. And although the holidays had only just started… she couldn't wait for the challenges next year would bring.


	20. Epilogue

The large fireplace, created out of an elaborate sculpture of various stones, provided the only light in the otherwise dark, crimson room. Within stood no more than two people – one male, stood in a full suit of armour that seemed to reflect the fire in a way as though it ran through the seams of the metal, and one female, lounged on a chair with a large, ornate glass, filled with a blood orange beverage that she was slowly sipping on. The crackle of wood burning echoed through the room far too large for a simple pair to meet, but it provided an ambience which the woman was clearly fond of.  
"What exactly is your opinion on fire, may I ask?" the woman queried of the man. Her voice, although deep in pitch, had an undeniable silkiness to it, and a weaker man would succumb to it immediately. The armoured knight, however, didn't even twitch.  
"Fire? It has its benefits. It is still the greatest destructive force I know of, however," he responded. His tone was rough, exotic, and deeper than that of the woman's, fitting in to his menacing armour that, behind the lined glows from the blaze, was almost hidden within the shadows, and added a layer of the ominous to him.  
The woman laughed, as smooth as the rest of her tone, and held out an arm towards the flames. A small, liquid stream of orange extracted itself from the fire and flew towards the woman, wrapping itself and flowing around the metal attachments on her hands that lay somewhere between giant gauntlets and claws, almost twice the size of her hands. The luminosity lit up her face, showing off not only the faint purple, almost scaly skin that covered her body, but her thin eyes, that were even more peculiar than the unusualness of her skin. Not only where the whites of her eyes completely black, darker than onyx – her irises were silver.  
"It is quite amazing how what is considered man's greatest 'invention' is also perhaps one of its greatest killers," the woman replied, in a nonchalant way as she gazed over the liquid flame streaming around her arm. "And that's something people will learn soon. I have a few jobs for you."  
You could tell the tone in the room had changed, as the woman's legs were no longer crossed, but both feet had planted themselves firmly on the floor, and her drink had left her hand. "There was someone who was once at Shade not too long ago, by the name of Skye Jinks. I will need you to retrieve her for me with the promise of chaos and destruction. She should not be too hard to find, we are in Vacuo after all," she continued. "Once that is done, I will need you in Atlas. The Atlesian military are currently working on an AI warrior, and I will need you to hack it for me and bring it to our cause. After that… Head to Vale, and more importantly the prison within it. They have an inmate in there called Silver Trueshot, and it will be your job to break him out."  
The knight nodded after that, before posing a question to the lady. "How will you keep yourself occupied, however?" he asked.  
The woman laughed, picking up her orange drink and finishing the last of it before answering. "Oh Atsali, haven't you learnt by now not to worry yourself with my intentions? If you must know, I have a… 'date' with a certain man in a position of power, but that is nothing that will concern you. Now go, you have people awaiting you," she said, causing the knight to turn sharply on his heel and leave the room.  
The woman smiled, watching him as he left before holding her right arm above her head, leaving the flames that circled her gauntlet to fall into her mouth, vanishing from existence. With her smile turning to a malicious grin, she shot her left hand out towards the fire some fifty feet away from her which caused it to immediately extinguish, engulfing her in darkness as the sound of a transformation occurred. The room echoed with a deafening roar, and then there was nothing.


End file.
